


Soon We'll Be Found

by Dannycangetitright



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Frank kinda becomes the vigilante first before Matt dons it, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, and matt is too, frank is so mad and sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6683227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dannycangetitright/pseuds/Dannycangetitright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt Murdock is just an attorney both day and night. Simply put, he's just as normal as any guy on the streets of Hell's Kitchen. He never decides to become a vigilante, never becomes a person who breaks the law, never becomes the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. He just internalizes it all, all the suffering, the pain, the injustice of it all, compartmentalizing everything into the recesses of his mind so they don't bother him too much. </p><p>Frank Castle is different though. Matt can't ignore him. He can't section him into a piece of his mind he can forget, he tried to, but he really can't. So now he's forced to play the part of the vigilante, a burden that causes him to be thrown into a world he never wanted to be in, but has to, needs to, by one man's need for foolish revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. So Come Along

What am I doing with my life?

Why am I continually asking myself this question?

Do I not know the answers to it? I can take a good guess.

Can I ask fate why I’ve been given this sense of duty to somehow accomplish? Sometimes I feel like a masochist at heart, living and breathing pain as I try to keep the Kitchen populace safe from every conceivable bad guy out there.

Rapists, serial killers, gang leaders or kingpins, kidnappers, human traffickers, shady drug dealers, anyone, really that deserves a punch in the face.  
Well, I didn’t necessarily punch them in the face. I’m willing to, but the court of law kind of forbids those actions.

Metaphorically, I did. I was working on cases to bring down drug lords and bad guys down. I metaphorically smashed their faces in with the law. I shake my head at that thought, my lips curving into a smirk. That totally isn’t as lame as Foggy had put it.

I do feel a sense of accomplishment going home every now and then, knowing that I put a bad guy in jail for proving his guiltiness. It doesn’t happen often, but often enough that I can sleep well.

Well is a bit of exaggeration I guess.

Well would indicate that I’m okay with it. That I am fine knowing I didn't do the best, or handle it the best or did it this way so that it would end in this happier undertone. 

So really, I'm not. 

Hogarth always told me that sometimes you don’t win all the cases you work with. The law is impartial for a reason.

It’s bullshit, really. The law can’t always save everyone? What good is the law then?

I know that the law saves more lives than it does doing bad to hapless people. It works effectively, and people get what they deserved, on both sides of the law.

But what about the others? There are still others who aren't graced with good luck and opportunities. The ones too poor to afford our services or not important enough? What about those that lie about their abuse, how they can’t get themselves to admit it because of how the law entreats on their personal opinion as sceptical at best, how can we help them? Or what about those people who are framed for things they didn’t do? What happens to those people? Nothing. The law isn’t perfect, but it’s the best system we have against savages who disobey it. It’s terrible, but we follow it because then we become just as bad as those who break it. Law with order is the only law. 

I still seethe. I still balk at everything I wasn't able to do perfectly. We can't save everyone. 

And we all just keep quiet, move on with our lives as we accept that life is just pure shit sometimes. There’s good in the world, there really fucking is, but the bad stuff that happens sometimes can leave a horrible taste in your mouth to ruin the whole thing. Its nights like these that have me awake at night, pondering at how shitty the world actually is. I'm restless and I don’t know for sure if I'm tired enough to get at least whatever hours of sleep I have left before I have to go to work this morning.

Decidedly, I don’t think I am that tired.

I get up out of my bed and move around my spartan apartment. Karen and Foggy have always asked me if they could redecorate my place, saying this place could use some work because of how dull and simple everything was.

My being as smart ass, gave them that certified blind guy look. Which is just me looking at them normally, but with my head cocked to the side.

My apartment works for a guy like me, I had told them. I just need simplicity. It's always been that way. The best defence mechanism, too. Divide and simplify problems to nothing. 

I sigh as I lay down on the couch and feel even more restless. My fingers are tapping gently against my thigh. I know I’ll be acting restless in the morning if I don’t do something about this. I bit my lips in thought. Should I do it this late?

I need it today. It’s starting to become something like a craving.

If anything, I can come to work a little later than usual since I'm supposed to be off this day.

But life sucks and sometimes cases don’t rest.

Heading back towards my bedroom, I slide open my closet.

I choose simple clothing for tonight. I don’t want to wear anything with more than 2 pieces of clothing for tonight. I go for a simple red shirt and grey faded jeans from my closet, feeling the braille tag of what the colours and design are. I decide last minute to change my underwear, too. It’s necessary to look good for both parts.

I sense around for my phone in the bedroom and pick it up as I leave the bedroom, letting the sliding door close from habit, and then quickly make my way to the front door, thankfully where my ruby tinted glasses rest. I put them on as I close the door to my apartment. 

I sigh with some sense of relief.

I really need this.


	2. In This World We Call Sleep

My night out looking for what I needed happened a lot quicker than I had really expected. It was almost like I walked out of my apartment and the next 30 minutes of that moment I promptly find a decent prospect just walking down a busy streetlight harassing some lady.

It felt nice to finally relieve some stress from my worrying thoughts.

Well for the most part I was certain.

I keep thinking back to how it started, though, to how this happened.

How this stranger got to me like this.

Just less than an hour ago it was me under the street light to find them talking to each other.

Once I was there I ended the conversation rather quickly as I asked the girl, that was being harassed by the man, for directions. I say ‘harassed’, but the girl was showing some interest, too. I just stopped it. The man huffed out in annoyance at my needing assistance, almost being pissy that I shut down his plans for tonight all too quickly.

I notice more things though. Subtle changes in his demeanour other than his attitude.

Notice that the moment I entered his sights his attention shifted fully, his body turned to the left of my vision. Noticed him crossing his arms at the lady now, and tilting his head to look me up and down. He was real obvious about his interest. I guess that’s the benefits of being blind. People assume you can’t notice blatant things like that.

Well, that, and having radar perception to pick up on these certain social ques.

“Hey, buddy, you mind asking someone else?” he whines, casually, no heat. 

I hear her scoff out, “don’t be rude.”

So I continue asking the girl where this certain place is, elaborating in a long spiel. She motions me to the wrong place, since she doesn’t actually know, but is too shy to not deny her assistance to me, or too embarrassed to say she doesn’t know after she already opened her mouth. I immediately don’t like her already. She’s not straightforward or what I’m looking for tonight.

Meanwhile the guy has left already, having lost his chance or interest, and he moves in the opposite direction the girl is leading me towards. She doesn’t try to help further, not really trusting me, and also not in the mood to prance around some blind guy. He doesn’t know for sure, I just think that with how bored she sounds.

I start walking the direction she described me towards, and hurriedly make my way around the block to see if I can sense him again. I don’t know why I’m following him, well, I do, but I don’t know why I’m trying so hard to find him again. There are other people I can find a lot easier than him.

But it’s late. Really late. Chances are I’m going to be sensing around again at some seedy bar where a bunch of sleazy guys and girls that will either mock me for being blind or feel like they need to escort me every way I go. I don’t need pity or mockery tonight.

“Damnit,” I say under my breathe as I’m already running around building making a full lap as I hit the intersection the guy was heading for. I can’t sense his heartbeat anywhere. It was a sound that was hard to forget. It was soft and powerful thud. Nothing I’ve ever heard before or rarely have heard. Not quite like that.

It is strange how someone’s heartbeat can be so soothing and terrifying at the same time. It's interesting to listen, to notice and wanting to hear more of it. 

I’m making my way around the city and moving forward in the direction he was walking in, and decide to stop and concentrate my senses to reach farther.

“Goddamn, Red. You deaf too or something?”

“What?” the man’s voice is a bit surprising, it’s gruffer than he had expected from his monotone responses. “Red?” I ask befuddled now that I actually establish in my head about what he said.

“You’re stupid red lenses are like neon lights in the dark.”

“Obviously I can’t see that.”

“But can you hear?” the eye roll he gives me is palpable.

“I’m not deaf.” I stop concentrating and turn to face at the general direction of his voice. He’d been standing by in an alley way, his back against the wall casually standing there. "

I hear an annoyed grunt, “Sure could’ve fooled me what with your inability to take directions. Pretty sure she said the place you’re going to is over there.” He points at the direction left of me, and then promptly realizes that I’m blind again.

I smirk. “Besides, what's wrong with my glasses?”

"Ugly and dark, makes you like some kind of devil with them on." 

I raise my eyebrows at the words. "Devil is a bit harsh, don't you think?" 

"Harsh like the truth." 

"Like how you pointed out a direction? Harsh thing to do to a blind man, you know?" 

“I didn't point, you're deflecting from my...point now,” he lies breezily, quite embarrassed for his previous slip-up. 

“Alright,” I say, amused, “So getting to the _actual point_ , do you mind heading me the right direction instead of showing me?”

He sighs a little, but doesn't sound too displeased that it feels awkward. “Fine, where we going again?”

I turn to point in the direction he had pointed to not too long ago. I chuckle a bit as he grumbles, grabbing my bicep as he leads me in the ‘right’ direction.

“What’s a blind guy like you walking this late at night anyways?”

“Same reason that you are.”

“Hookup?” His brows raise higher in interest, he chuckles a bit. “You looking for a roll in the sack?”

“It just depends on who’s asking.”

His head shakes in amusement, or I assume he is. It’s hard to really grip his attitude right now.

“Now I’ve seen everything.” His head beckons to the side in a thinking pose. “Wait, wait, wait I’m confused now. Were you cock blocking me? Or her?”

I shrug in fake defense. “You think that was my M.O? I’m just some blind guy that needs help. Besides, I don’t think she was that interested.”

“Oh, she definitely would have been. You’re just some prick who bothered me.”

I press my lips in a thin line. “You’re grossly overestimating yourself.”

I feel his other hand wave in the air. I can’t really get a sense of it, but I think he’s just exasperated by my bantering. “I don’t buy that bullshit anymore. You’re too cocky for someone who can’t see. You ain’t blind.”

“Are we under a streetlight?” I ask suddenly. I know that we are, I just want to make a point.

“Yeah. We are.”

I make another point when I lean closer to him, he backs up a bit but slowly I get close to him, close enough to drop my glasses down and let him look for himself.

My eyes have often been described as beautiful with their green freckles and hazel colours. They’re just normal eyes from birth, they just haven’t dilated or seen proper light since I was 9.

Just useless organs that carry an aesthetic appeal every now and then when I take my dark glasses off. I find it strange how people can be so affected by eyes, of their depth or power over a person. I guess since being blind at a young age, it doesn’t enable me to understand or appreciate it that well.

“Can you see them properly now?” I hope he knows what to look for in my eyes.

“Son of a bitch,” he says in a tight whisper. I can smell his aftershave on him. Its musky…and there’s a faint smell of smoke or something not quite cigarettes. I can’t really pin-point the smell. It might be some new, strange cologne.

“So you believe me now?” I lean away from him, and walk backwards a little before turning around from him.

He walks up behind me and grabs my bicep again. His hands are rough and calloused, I can feel it through the fabric. His touch is gentle yet controlling, leading me, but as softly as he can.

“Where to again?”

“My place is up ahead, a few blocks away actually.”

The guy actually sputters a bit and he lets go of my arm to stop walking. I continue though, letting my assumption on his interest take the lead on my decisions. I hear his heart fading, but the sound is resilient to my ears that it doesn’t completely fade away from my senses once I stop concentrating. I’m halfway to my place, taking a turn and then walking a few more steps before I hear him swear. I smile as I hear his heartbeat clearer and clearer.

“You know, anyone ever tell you you’re an arrogant son of a bitch, Red?”

“I’ve been called worse, I am a lawyer after all.”

“Explains your personality then.”

I snort at him, “I’m not some shark. I’m better than that.”

“I dunno, could have fooled me, Red.”

I shake my head slightly, reprimanding him as best I could while he’s behind me. “My name’s Matt, not Red. Matt.”  
“Whatever you say, Red.”

“Now who’s stubborn?” I call back behind me.

“Let’s just get inside already. This is your place right?”

I bite back a snarky comment on his assumption that I’d let him in. I don’t really want that, not even to joke. I really need it. Does it make me selfish to get to the point quickly?  
I simply nod as he grabs my arm again and we walk into my buildings door.

He doesn’t have any finesse or continues to chat once we enter my apartment door. Neither do I, but I’m not the one who initiated it so hastily.

I smell his taste before I even really kiss him. His smell is still earthy and citrusy, but there’s that hint of smoke again, of some intangible fume I can’t seem to place. It’s strange and different and I’m slowly learning to love the smell now. It’s addictive, the scent of it adds to the earthy smell. It's like a metal, or sweet smelling acrid scent. It’s strange, his smell, it seems to change, but there’s always that one specific trace scent that sticks on his skin..

His lips feel soft, not at all how I expected someone like him too feel. He’s not as rough or overpowering as I thought he'd be from the start, he’s tentative about his touch right now, testing me. I grab his hands and lead them towards my face, letting him hold my cheek and back of my head while I try to push back on his kissing, seeing if he’d fight back.

He does take the message, and begins to get aggressive as he grasps my dark brown hair with his hands, exploring and grunting out in satisfaction. The taste is fresh and clean, not at all like he smells. I don’t really know if I bit hard enough to bleed, but I do taste a metallic tinge when I kiss him again. I keep pushing as well, trying to see his limits. I start to go for his shirt and try to lift it off of him, but his hands suddenly grab my own and he’s pushing me back to a wall.

My head makes a resounding thud as it hits the wall. He stops a bit, worried that he might have gone too far. I bite his lip a bit harder when I go to kiss him, to tell him that I am more than fine with it.

He responds by pushing harder, pinning me to the wall. His hands leave my hair and start to roam under my shirt. I gasp a little when his fingers touch my skin. I can feel him smirking. I know he’s smirking. I’m not that easy to goad such a response, but his touch is like live wire, it leaves intricate sensations that cross over my skin. His rough, calloused and grip tightly at my hips now, leaving an imprint on my pale skin.

I slowly thrust my hips against his while I kiss him hungrily. I’m grabbing hold of his ass, where I grip them tightly, and allowing myself to grind against the hard strain in his pants. He’s moaning now too when I position my erection just right to slide perfectly against his own.

I smile. I don’t let up that easy. His hands let go of my arms for a bit while he unbuttons my shirt. I shiver as I moan, his hands leave the same tingling current all over my chest.  
It’s a stumble of a walk to my bedroom. He’s leading me, but doesn’t know where the door is. But I concede to follow him, acquiescing the fact about my ability to maneuver around my own house with our without my radar. I may be blind and all that, but memorization is still a thing.

Still leading me the wrong direction I finally give up and pull free from his hands, and move to where the makeshift door is so I can slide it open. “Is this what you were looking for?” I tell him casually as I lean against one end of the arched entryway.

“No. I thought the couch would be better.”

“Really?” I twist my head slightly to the left in mock confusion. “You sure? It is pretty small you know. Don’t think two grown men can fit on it that easily and be comfortable.”

“Just get in there would you,” he says thankfully pushing me with a hand to my chest towards the bedroom pathway and not the couch.  
  
“Romantic.” It comes out more derisive than I thought, but he takes it in stride by pushing me harder.

“Fuck romance.”

I’m pushed downward to the bed frame and suddenly feel his heart rate pumping faster as he looks down at me. It’s loud and obnoxious, the sound nearly making it hard to concentrate on what he says. I feel his arms pull my hands up over my head against the sheets. I hadn’t realized he’d taken his shirt off, but he had somehow without me noticing. I can feel the slight scrape of his chest hair poke at my hairless skin.

I hear the sound of metal clanking and the sound of him shuffling off his jeans once my hands are free. I still leave them up there, a bit disoriented from all the sensory input. His smell, his heart, his touch has my head overdosed on something. His hands finally find my hips again, where he hoists me upwards, and removes my pants and underwear in one swift motion.

The cold air touches my stiff cock, and no sooner than that do I feel his naked body against mine. The feeling of his body against mine is such a drastic change in sensation. It’s an overload that my toes start curling and my eyes squeeze tight. He grunts on top of me and his hot breathe is on my face. I grab his cock with my own and slowly jerk them together, already feeling precum combining together at the tips. It’s slick and hot and I’m nearly breathless as the man on top of me shivers.

“God, stop, stop. Fuck!” I hear him curse. His hands go to grab mine and he kisses me with crushing force to distract me. His tongue laps against my own and I’m become very aware of his taste. Peppermint and some cheap whiskey.

“Too fast?” I pant heavily once we break apart.

He nods. “Not yet.”

I nod, too, and point him towards the nightstand. He immediately stretches over me to grab what I hope he’ll find in there. I soon start to feel the cool sensation of his tongue on my chest, slowly making its way to my nipple. He pulls gently on it with his teeth, and at that time do I feel the promptly cold, sticky liquid of the lube at my ass. I nearly brace myself from the shock, but he holds my torso down with his other hand. He starts a gentle massage over the sphincter and I feel like bucking against him.

It starts with one finger in and then another two added slowly, stretching me open in scissor-like ministrations. I don’t even register my moaning because his heart rate is beating faster, his breathe is heavy, and his tongue is sliding against my stomach, all the way down the bush of my own dick. He gently laps his tongue against my dick and balls, before he takes the head in.

My hands have slowly found their way to his head now, no longer taking being held back, I run my fingers through his silky, short hair. I feel the miniscule twists of curls, just enough to grasp on, and pull gently. I gasp once he’s taken out all three fingers.

I hear the rubbery slip of the condom and calmly hold my breath when I feel the head of his shaft enter slowly. The pain is there as always, but it’s minimized by the other things that are going on. I feel his head rest on my shoulders, his teeth biting not so gently on my skin that I know they'll leave marks. His hands are also on my hips now, slowly circling his thumbs around the V of my torso. I grip his shoulders to ease myself when he pushes more of himself in me. I pant huff out a grunt when he pushes a little too quickly. I squeeze his shoulders even tighter and so does his hands around me.

Once I feel him all the way in, we stay still for a while, both breathless as I try to recuperate his size, and him feeling the tightness of being inside me. I feel his teeth graze against the corners of my ears. He times the first, quick thrust with a bite. I cry in both pain and ecstasy at the dual sensation.

Soon, he starts to thrust harder, faster, and the slap of our bodies together becomes a loud and powerful sound. He stops intermittently, to languidly thrust, and then hurriedly pistons inside of me. I feel the sweat from his back collect, feeling the expanse of muscles and sinews contract and move, and his heavy breathe paint moisture on my neck. His voice starts to get strained, his moans, his grunts, getting louder and heftier.

I’m not even coherent as he aims it just right on my prostate, which cause my toes curl, and my palms drag their nails over his back in astoundment at the searing feeling in my stomach. My heads hot, my skin feels like it is on fire from the sensory overload, my eyes are rolling behind their eyes, and the sounds of everything that’s happening just creates a cacophony of prurient orchestra.

“Fuck, I’m close,” he admits in a near gasp. I feel him push harder when I slide down to meet him.

“Keep… going, fuck,” I moan, feeling my core getting tighter, the hot, white pressure building up as I spill over myself and him.

It doesn’t take long before I hear the man above me cry out in orgasm as he stills, pushing in in small jerks in a guttural groan. 

We both stay like that for a while. Breathless and worn out. The intense feelings slowly fading away, leaving behind a tender and languid body.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Red.”

“Blaspheme,” I manage to chuckle out when he collapses on me. I feel the hard lines of his abs meet mine, and the feel of the hard pressed muscle is a nice difference from my softly firm abdomen. The pressure of him is reassuring. 

"Well, then just, fucking hell, Red," he laughs lamely as he pushes himself up. 

I smile sultry at that. “Nice save.”

"What? Too good to put the lords name in vain, Choirboy?" 

I feel a pout on my chin. "I just don't like it."

"Hell with a mouth like yours and a fuck like that I didn't take you to be so adamant on being such a goody-two-shoes." 

"I'm a mass of contradictions. You'll be surprised to know that about me." I reach for his dick again, thumbing the head absently as I lick the sensitive end of it, tasting the seed and carnality of it. 

His moan is better than last time. Unexpected and full of pure bliss. “What?" he says a bit surprised once I'm on his lap again, "Now? What in hell is your recuperation time, Red? You a fucking floozy or something?”

I frown a little, at the name and the sexist insinuation. “I don’t mean now of course, we especially need to clean up for that to happen. I'm just having a bit of fun right now.”

“All for that, yeah,” he agrees in a nod while he stretches out beside me in a groan, his hips rocking against mine, liking the strange way our come mixes. It's heady the sensation that I don't hear his words for a bit.

“But first, you got any food?”


	3. Tomorrow We'll Be Free

The morning to come I awake to the strange feel of the bruises all over my shoulders and hips. It’s not bad, a nice soreness really. It’s like a nice tingling sensation over some parts of my body, and some that are just too sensitive that I’d have to be careful around the office for a few days, else someone will notice, specifically Karen and Foggy. Yeah. No. Not at all the kind of awkward conversation I want to talk about in the workplace or in general.

Speaking of last night, memories start flooding my mind of the rough grips and tender kisses of the stranger. The expanse of muscles and sinewy arms holding me

I can feel shuffling in the sheets, shuffling that isn’t me, but I feel less alert about the stranger now that I remember. I haven’t been asleep for that long I guess, just an hour or two. I click on the clock and its drone-like voice tells me that it’s 5:33. I still have 2 more hours before I absolutely have to head to work or else Jeri will have my head for not reviewing casework on my latest lawsuit.

“In a hurry?” I ask casually as I hear him rummaging for his clothes and belt.

“Gotta feed Max in the morning.”

“I’m hoping that’s your dog and not your kid.”

“It is, my dog, that is,” he says, gruffly rebuffing my joke. “I ain’t married if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Just a necessary precaution I say in my head. “Your belts under the grey couch,” I tell him once he finds his jeans and slips them on.

I can feel his gaze on me while I bring the blanket over me, trying to rest just a tad bit more before I need to get ready. He’s probably skeptical about what I said, but he does go out of the bedroom and into the living room where he does find his belt. I can hear the clinking metal and the leather crease around into the belt loops.

“Thanks. Mind if I run a pot?” I hear him yell from the kitchen.

“Not at all. Make me a cup, please?” I ask nicely for once. I count off my seven minutes and push myself out of the bed and begin dressing up, and by that I just put on a white shirt and some clean underwear while I walk to sit down in the living room. I slowly begin to smell the scent of coffee fill the air and I stretch out on the couch languidly.

I hear a clink, then a splashing sound, and soon his footsteps behind me and sits next to me while he places a cup of coffee to my awaiting hands. “Thank you,” I say as I take a quick sip of the decently brewed coffee. It’s not too sugary, just how he likes it.

“No problem.”

“Aren’t you going to race home to feed your dog now?” I ask, not out of rudeness, but curiosity. I tilt my head to his direction for an answer.

“I just made coffee for myself. I want to finish it.”

I raise one eyebrow in suspicion. “You already drank it, well, most of it anyways.”

There's a lilt in his voice, like a low chuckle, amused at his response. “How the hell do you do that? Are you some kind of super?”

“Super?” I tilt my head more. His comment still eludes me. I have sense, but, I wouldn't consider them super. 

“You aren’t fooling me on this whole blindness thing. You may be legally blind, but I know you can see me somehow.”

“Maybe I’m just lucky,” I shrug. “Or I’m just really perceptive of you not sipping any coffee since the last 3 minutes I’ve been drinking mine.”

“Fine. I’m not gonna press for anymore answers or elaborate on mine. I get the point now, you want me gone, I understand.”

I can hear him stand up and move towards the door. I speak up again.

“I did enjoy last night though, I don’t deny that.” I walk up to the general direction he’s standing, and smirk at the man before me. Everything with him felt good, felt nice even. No pretense of bullshit, and straight to the point is what I like. No date, no dinner and no fancy suits. Just quick and rough.

“Consider making this a casual thing?” Frank throws out the comment with nonchalance, but there's interest in it, Matt can tell. 

“I think it’s both in our benefit to continue…with this. Its, well, it’s what I needed for a while now.”

“A fuckbuddy?”

I roll my eyes. “If you want to be uncouth, yes, a fuckbuddy is what I needed tonight,” I admit begrudgingly. “Tonight at 11? What’s your schedule like for today? I’m pretty sure I’m free tonight,” I ask him, then promptly figure out my schedule for the week. I don’t usually work nights so I assume that we’d do it that time.

“No need to act formal about this, Red, christ, you make it sound like we’re signing some kind of business contract.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to make it clear.”

“Tonight’s fine with me. I’ll ring here a littler later though.”

“That’s fine. I have work in the morning at 8 anyway and probably won’t be home till 10.”

I hear him sigh and feel the air shift around his head. “Only I’d be stupid enough to consider screwing around with a shark like you.”

“I heard no complaints from your side,” I grumble back, but smile contently at him.

“The sex is good, no doubt. I Just never thought I’d be hanging out with the other side of the law is all, Red.”

I would roll my eyes, which I actually do, but it’s ineffective since I had unconsciously put on my shades. “Stop calling me that…what is your name again? I don’t think we disclosed that fact at all last night.”

I watching his face closely, I can see the shift of his lips and teeth, like he’s biting down on it, and thinking really hard about it. “It’s Frank. Frank Castle.”

“Well, Frank Castle. I’m Matt Murdock, blind attorney working for Jeri Hogarth. Now you can call me by my real name or I’ll have to kick you out for being a jackass.”

He laughs a bit at that, and its genuine laughter so I know he isn’t mocking me. Not fully at least.

“Also what do you mean other side of the law?” I screw my eyebrows in a tight line as I stare at him. He slowly slides on his jacket as he turns his head to look at me.

“Means what it means, Red. You ain’t gotta think so hard with that super brain of yours.”

The question is left unanswered as he opens my door and walks out.

I’m puzzled. What the hell does he mean by that? Is he deflecting a simple answer? I mean I get the idea of it, but, like does he mean he’s on the police force? Or some kind of criminal? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. He doesn’t seem like one, more of an asshole than anything. It’s safer to assume the former. I don’t need to focus on drama that way, especially on a person who coined themselves as a fuckbuddy to me.

His words leave me questioning that I don’t hear or notice the ringing in my room for a few seconds. Fuck. That’s probably Karen or Foggy asking why he’s late for their morning casework. I walk towards the room and answer it quickly.

He was right. It’s Karen on the other end.

“Matt! Where the hell are you? Jeri’s been asking that for the last hour or so and I haven’t been able to give her a proper answer. She hates me now because of you!”

“I was caught up in something, woke up late because of it.” I feel slightly bad for not respecting her no-lying rule. I technically didn’t lie, just omitted some stuff. I can’t be too sure if half-lies count.

“Oh, Matty.” I know she’s probably not satisfied with my response. “You know what, just get here. Jeri’s seething about the sudden turn of events about the Gerney case. Tuurns out some new evidence was revealed when they redid the autopsy and now they have a lead on our client. So we need you here to rehash a new defense with Foggy.”

I’m mentally berating myself for allowing that autopsy to happen. It was shit luck they found evidence that puts a bad light on our client now. “Alright, yeah that’s bad, I’ll be there in 30 minutes, Karen. I’m rushing as of now.”

“That’s good,” I hear her sigh in relief, “I’ll start clearing through old precedent cases, check some that we could use for the case and lookup new evidence to discredit theirs.”

I chime in to say thank-you, but she beats me to it.

“Yeah, yeah, you can thank me later with a bonus,” she says, not at all jokingly.

I tell her thanks anyways, tell her absolutely for putting up with my bullshit for today. I rush into some clean clothes, and do some other necessary preparations for today. I leave my apartment in under ten minute’s tops and hail a cab promptly getting out of my buildings door.

The taxi ride is fairly quick, having beat the majority of the early morning traffic rush since I’m late.

I pay the taxi driver, and jump out the car in one quick motion. I flip out my cane and carefully make my way to the firms building.

Once I’m in the building the stress starts to leave me, but I still quicken my pace and make way for the elevators to the floor Foggy’s office is.

I replace the being late stress with work stress now. It’s a vicious cycle of mental strain for me that I’ll never really get out of.

“Speak of the devil and he will come,” Foggy chirps loudly as he’s gesturing towards me in jest mockery.

I shake my head at him while I rest my briefcase gently on the ground. I hear Karen’s soft footsteps behind me, and also smell fresh brewed coffee, that’s hopefully for me. I sit down one of his chairs and ask him for a quick debrief on the change of our situation. I ignore most of the parts that Karen has already told me, which I use as a way to momentarily ask Karen if the coffee is for me. I smile when she says yes.

She gingerly hands me the steaming cup, and sits next to the other seat beside me, the whole team is back together now. I hear Foggy clasp his hands as he starts to focus on further details about the case which I intently listen.

We go over basic rundowns and possible outcomes for the case, figuring out new defenses and witnesses we can fault for deliberately corrupting autopsy reports. It’s a typical work day and I end up with more or less headache once we’re done with a 3 hour long debrief.

The case isn’t particularly anything stressful or terrible to deal with. It is just hard to deal with senseless murder, and finding out the murderer will basically be walking like a freeman in this city if we don’t come up with anything to screw up their defense.

It sometimes left me vulnerable with how hard it was to fight the bad guys with the law. It had its restrictions sometimes.

I remembered one particular conversation about a matter similar to this with Hogarth. I doze off a bit, from Foggy’s advisement about the case, remembering it.

“So why do you take them?” Hogarth had asked me this question one night when she and I were both working on a recent case.

The question had caught me off guard when I was overlooking transactions our client had recently purchased. “What do you mean?”

“You always seem so stressed and spiteful at cases like these. You have bags under your eyes, you’re relentlessly rude with people who aren’t Karen or Foggy, and seem so angry at the world for not following on its punishments to the damned. I get that the law isn’t perfect, it changes and shifts, and it’s not always for the benefit of all, but it’s the best defense we have to our structured society.”

 _Then why don’t we fix it_? It’s a question that hangs in the air between us.

“It’s how I am, I guess,” I say instead of what I want to. It’s complicated and I hate trying to unravel a part of me like this. I just don’t know why I’m like this.

“Don’t half ass an answer, Matthew,” she admonishes.  

I guess I have to now. I casually pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to focus on conveying what I meant properly.

“I hate the world we live in. It’s dirty and disgusting. People kill and use others for money or slavery, to gain fear and power, for selfish love, or for the sheer senseless violence of it, or really for any other terrible, conceivable reason to known man. It’s just awful and frightening to think about that sometimes I feel sick to my stomach.”  

“So you became a lawyer to help with this problem?” she frowned and exhaled.

“Yes.” It’s a simple answer for a not so simple question.

She leans closer to, towards my end of the table. “You know, with how you’re feeling, don’t you think you have the mindset of a vigilante in the works?” her voice is collected and calm. It’s not an insinuation, but, well, he’s not certain for sure what it is.  

I shake my head resolutely, not at all prepared for the question but unwilling to leave it unanswered.

Damn. She’s good. A lawyer can easily use a tactic like this to make a witness or crucial member of the court to slip up.

I take a moment to speak, exhaling a tired breathe once I finally do. “I don’t think I’m outside of the law, Jeri. I know my limits. I want to see the law punish those who deserve it and compensate for those who have been wounded by others. But punishment doesn’t work if you don’t give redemption, and so that’s what my job as a lawyer is. My job is to be a person who can provide both sides a chance of redemption.”

I see her lean back on her chair and ‘hmph’ quietly. “That’s very religious of you, really. Saving everyone. Seeing the good in all people.”

I think about her words for a minute, letting them sink in for a bit before I answer. “My faith in Christianity and the law are the same. You have to see the good in everyone, or at least the good to come.”

“So it’s in your nature to do the right thing, it's ingrained into your work ethic?"

I don’t agree with her and it shows on my brows. “Nature or not, I can’t allow some injustice to be left alone, but I have to do it in terms of respect to the law.”

“So you think you have a better solution?”

I’m a bit surprised by that. “Excuse me?”

“You said _you_ _have_ to do it in terms of the law, instead of _you must_. It implies that you don’t see eye to eye with the law all the time.”

“Following the law is the number one code for every citizen, Mrs. Hogarth. I’m just a lawyer willing to go outside of boundaries, a tiny bit." Her fingers idly loop her pen, and then she continues to write something down on her notepad while looking at me in her periphery. I continue, "I just find loopholes and opportunities to abuse more often. It’s just stressful to work around it is what I meant by it.”

“It’s just Jeri, Matthew, call me Jeri,” she insisted instead of replying immediately.

She must be grimacing right now. Foggy always says that’s her default face. “Well, it must be tiring work to carry all that on your shoulders then.”

I don’t come up with a respond this time. I know what I carry. I’m just glad I find an output from time to time.

She stopped asking questions after that.

I was very thankful.

Thinking about that has me wasting a few precious minutes on work.

Specifically listening to Foggy’s insightful input. I don’t come back into the conversation for a while. It’s a good thing Foggy doesn’t pick up on my lucid thinking, or just chooses to gladly ignore it.

It’s just a strange thought that always comes back when I walk into this place sometimes. It just had an impact

I shake my head of thoughts and thank him for the advice. I needed to get to my office soon, take a look at all those papers and files Karen said were there now. 

It had felt weird having an office so far from Foggy’s as I exit his with a quick see you later to the both of them. 

When we first thoughtfully accepted positions here, we were struggling keeping business with our own firm, trying to find paying clients or recognition. 

Jeri had come into the picture all too strangely from a former client with freakishly, powerful strength.

She saved our company by suggesting us clients who weren’t wealthy enough to hire her, but were financially stable to hire us. From time to time to keep it afloat. It wasn’t charity she had called it.

She gave us tough cases, some of them nail biting and keeping us awake for 3 days straight. It was difficult, but we managed to pull out well. She was generally impressed by the reviews and thank you's her former clients had given her for her suggestion. 

It didn’t last long though. It doesn’t take a few clients to keep a mostly for free law firm up and running.

So that’s why we’re all working with Jeri now. Jeri Hogarth, the inquisitive, ruthless lawyer with the questionable decision to hire all 3 of us into her firm. Karen and Foggy were all on-board for it, I was too, but I gave one caveat.

She succumbed easily though, and now we’re kind of running a separate, but functioning part of the firm.

We can freely choose our pro bono work, and if needed, we would take on cases normally not meeting the standard requirement of funds. It’s not often, we have to begrudgingly decline on some people. It’s terrible and downright unjust. I guess if I had the cognitive dissonance some people have to forgo helping people in respect for monetizing their ‘charity’ for more appropriate clients, I’d sleep better at night. But I don’t.

The one other thing she couldn’t get us was that our offices were too spaced apart. She said that the snap decisions to hire us left her with little room to move people or space to do so. It was slightly an issue to get all three of us together to come up with solutions, or defenses, and ideas sometimes for case work, but we we were still a resilient bunch of friends. 

On the other hand though, it does come very hand when we want to be alone for a while. I usually end up using that benefit more often than the two of them. 

So I end up secluding myself in my office for the rest of the day, and continue working on the case diligently that I end up losing myself in the work again.

My mind goes numb for a while, just going through the motions. I keep digging up more recent files and have them decoded through braille. I can’t make use of anything though. It’s another dead end after fruitless hours of research. I sigh as I lean back from my office table and stretch my palms.

I hear the familiar click clack of Karen’s heels again and I know she’s going to ask me to go out and eat with them. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I generally have to go this time just so she keeps asking again.

Besides it has been quite a while since I had last eaten. I don’t even remember if I had breakfast this morning.

“Great,” she says cheerily. “We’re heading to the pizzeria a few blocks down. I’ll be back with Foggy in 20 minutes or so.”

Once we get there the scent of pasta and cheese assault my nose. I hadn’t realized how hungry I actually was that my stomach grumbles. We all decide to order 2 pizzas and I don’t contest because I’m certain that I could eat a full one.

“You don’t usually join us on one of these excursions, Matty. What’s up?” Foggy says, trying to extrapolate some hidden meaning behind it. It’s not that hard, theoretically. I don’t usually hang out with them during stressful times like these. It’s harder on me than it is for them. They sleep easier knowing with absolute conviction that we will win. I’m not privy of that kind of conviction. Sometimes we don’t really win, not the way the legal justice plans it out.

I don’t say any of that of course. They’d look at my all funny and strange. “Change of scenery and all. Plus I’m kind of tired of the rabbit food diet lately,” I lie blandly.  

“Good man,” Foggy says as he honest to god applauds. I don’t have knack to good naturedly insult him, too focused on the smell of food and pasta. Karen asks one of the waiters nearby that their ready to order.

“Are you okay with Hawaiian, Matt?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Karen quickly orders that along with a meat lovers for Foggy.  She also orders iced tea and a sprite jug. Iced tea for me and her, and sprite just for Foggy.

“You two disgust me,” Foggy cried out in mock pain. “Pineapple on pizza? That’s blaspheme to have especially at this place. Do you know where we are guys? Giuseppe’s! One of the best places to get pizza here.”

I assume Karen rolls her eyes, both parts amused and charmingly annoyed by Foggy. “If it’s such a bad thing for them, why do they have it on the menu, Foggy?” Karen retorts.

“Because they didn’t actually think someone would be dumb enough to order one. It’s like the option to bankrupt yourself. You don’t actually do it because you’re a smart, sane human being.”

Karen is definitely rolling her eyes again. She giggles at him while shaking her head. “I am a _sane_ and _smart_ human being, Foggy Nelson,” she chides, gently on the edge of threatening. Matt is, too,” she says more so as considerate afterthought.

Foggy wiggles his fingers at the both of us. “I bet you their pineapples are molded because they never use them. Just in a corner of the backroom wasting away.”

Karen’s giggling turns into full laughter as she bats Foggy’s finger away. “Stop being dramatic. It’s good on pizza, and _you_ know it.”

“No. You’ll never hear me say such things out loud or ever.”

“Oh c’mon. It’s good, isn’t it, Matt?” she says, trying to reach out to me so I can convince him too.

I shake my head in reluctance to speak out though. “I’m not getting into this debate with Foggy. I learned my lesson in college last time we had this conversation.”

“Oh my god, you guys are so strange sometimes. It’s silly to be so hung up on fruit on pizza. Besides, I already ordered it,” she admonished Foggy while pointing her finger at him to mock him from before, “so you best shut your trap about it being bad.”

“Hey,” Foggy says in defensively. “I have like a quarter of Italian blood in me. I have to be bold on my sentiments about pineapple on pizza.”

“Last time you said you were quarter Irish when we went to that terrible pub,” Karen pipes up bemusedly. “It was so terrible that you said the place probably used leprechaun blood to ferment their alcohol,” she says as her face scrunches up, like in disgust.

“I’m mixture of white, okay? And very creative in how I word things,” Foggy intoned. “I just want you all to know my dead granpapa from Italy is probably shaking his head at us right now.” He intoned that as well.  

I let their banter go back and forth and smile contently at them. I don’t really understand Foggy’s insistent need to condemn pineapple on pizza, but it’s a long standing argument that I’ve lost interest in fighting about. Impartially speaking, it’s pretty decent on pizza. It’s a nice mix of salty and sweet, especially if bacons on it.

But I’m not going to admit that opinion to him anytime soon.

It’s so strange to be thinking about this now. I too feel very bemused about this situation. I love the simple distraction they give me about the real world problems that I constantly think about. The moment I sat down on this table and chatted with them my headache slowly drifted off into nothing.

A headache caused by the stress and concern over the justice of a dead client and their family. It looms over my head like a rainy cloud, just settling their and casting rain and thunder from time to time.

Convictions or not, it’s still fun to be around good company. For now I can just think about pineapples on pizza, think about how comfortable Foggy and Karen are being right now, and how the scent of –

It’s quick and fast. Thump, thump. It’s him. I can’t forget that sound. Hard to even if I tried, really.

Foggy and Karen instantly stop talking, and turn to me once they notice my ears have perked up and my head cranes towards the kitchen. I can pick up the faintest sounds of yelling from there now, too. I hone on it quickly, but I sense that the argument has ended because it gets quiet. Like they’re whispering now. 

The sound of the gunshot immediately shocks my ears that I flinch. It’s incredibly ear splintering. Instinctively, we all dive under the table and Foggy starts yelling and screaming to get the hell out. Karen’s got her phone out and is dialing the telltale sounds of 911. There is a second gunshot followed by an order to do something. I can’t quite decipher what he says because I’m a little disoriented. I pick up what I can and the rest.

_Tell me what you know, where is Cavallo. I swear to-_

Another gunshot sound. It’s from a different one, this one isn’t as loud. Two guns. Three now. It's all a orchestra of bullets that the sounds blend in horrific violence that's too much to listen too.

I hear him cursing, Frank, a sound I can hear definitively clearly. And soon an onslaught of shots fill the air, and we’re all slowly making our way out of the building with the other patrons as fast as we can.

 I stop intermittently to hear, trying my best to focus and run.

_Get that - fucker! Knows - name now!_

It's not his voice that's all I can tell for sure until Foggy is pushing me, making me lose sense of their voices, as he shouts to get the hell out now. I feel a pull at my chest when we finally exit the front door. I know I heard it. I didn’t mistake it. The patrons around us on the sidewalk aren’t him, they don’t sound like him. If he’s still in there I have to at least hear him again and know he’s safe. I’m glad Foggy went to check over Karen once we got out. I won’t be distracted by him this time. I’m not that far from the pizzeria as I should safely be, but I still have to move a little closer to it to hear them. 

I try to focus again, letting my other senses dull out while I strain to hear.

I hear the explosion first before I even feel the shards of glass shrapnel and smoke hit me. My ears feel like they exploded, my ear drum is ringing. I feel the wind get knocked out of me all of a sudden, and bang my head hard on something, it disorients me further, like a pin-ball is bouncing around my head now.

 Someone starts yelling. I assume it’s a someone. It’s muddled voices right now. It could by own my voice and I couldn’t tell.

“Matt? Matt!” I hear Karen speak very softly, barely hearing her. It’s strange because I know she’s yelling, I can feel her pulse raise and mouth open widely in a yell.

“Oh god, oh god, I’m right here, Matt!” Foggy says very concerned with the same whispering sound. “Oh shit, your head’s bleeding.” I feel pressure on my temple. Their voices sound fuzzy. It’s like I’m hearing them with my ears clogged in water, no, something thicker, like they’re clogged in mercury.

“I’m - I’m fine.” I try to stand up, but feel so dizzy that I lean too far and keel over.

I black out the moment I feel my head hit the concrete.


	4. You'll Have Some Things To Say

 

I awake to the soft sounds of machinery humming.

I feel the tubes, and needles, and pads all over my body, feel the probe and prod me with their clean and sanitary feeling. I deduce quickly that I’m in the hospital now after the blast.

 _The blast_. What the hell was that? I remember gunshots and yelling and the name.

And Frank.

What happened to Frank? I know he was there, in the kitchen, yelling at the man with guns. I don’t fully understand my worry for him, he’s as much of a stranger in the technical sense. I don’t owe him my concern, or this much of it at the least.

My back is slightly sore and my head aches just a tad bit more than it usually does as I try to move around the bed, getting comfortable in my position. I’m searching for the remote to get assistance from the nurse now that I’m awake.

“You’re awake now.”

Immediately I zone in on him. That voice. Frank.  _What the hell_?

“Frank.”

“Red.”

It’s a strange sort of standoff that I’m not wholly prepared to understand why it’s happening.

“Where…” I say weakly, “where are Foggy and Karen? Are they still here?”

“Your friends are sleeping in the waiting room.”

My eyebrows quirk in confusion. “Then how are you in here?”  _Or why?_

“I just snuck in here,” saying it like it’s totally not an infringement on hospital policy. “You’ve been out for 8 hours or so and I came by to check on you.” He doesn’t say anything after that. Okay, so he half answered it, yeah, sure, that’ll be enough to handle this intrusion with cavalier abandon.

I lean back and relax. I wonder if there’s a remote nearby I can click to get the nurse. I don’t want to click it now, just find it for now. I have trouble searching for the remote though. I sense around and find that it’s been swept under the table. Strange, how did it get there? I’ll just wait out, there’s probably a nurse making rounds today and she’ll be here soon to check-up on me. Besides, I doubt Frank would bother getting the remote for me.

Instead, I become focus on what he’s said so far, at how long it’s actually been. It’s almost midnight now. My productivity gone out the window.

 _Shit_.

I haven’t finished my casework for today. I can’t afford to be ill prepared on with the court date coming so soon. It’ll be a disaster if I don’t get checked out soon. I’ve already wasted enough time with Frank today now. Huh. Is that why Franks here? Was he actually close by to the explosion and saw me? Is that why he’s here? Possibly. But that doesn’t seem practical for a guy like Frank. I’m a stranger in the sense he’s a stranger to me. We owe nothing to each other.

I shake the thought of Frank now, I just ignore his presence and try to think of a way I can get Karen or Foggy here. I might be able to do some work if I can ask them to bring my laptop and braille processor in. I throw that idea out the window since I doubt they would. They’d tell me to focus on getting better. And move the court date or something because of this inconvenience. I sigh again and pinch the bridge of my nose.

I can’t seem to get anything right today, can’t get work done at all for this case, and now I’m too stressed from the inability of being able to do it that I can’t even relax into comfortable sleep now. What a vicious cycle this all has been now.

Frank coughs. I ignore it and let myself stretch.

I scooch over a little, to have my back resting on the pillow and my head raised. It doesn’t hurt as much, but I can deal with the pain for now since I feel slightly knocked out from painkillers.  

Frank coughs again to get my attention. It holds a derisive tone to it, like he beckons me to answer it.

“Why are you here, Frank?” I don’t even care if I come off rude. I just need an answer. A real one this time.

“You yelled out my name.”

 _I did_? “What?” I crane my head to the side slightly, bemused by his words. I called his name? I don’t even remember that. I can only recall falling to the ground, disoriented and unconscious.

I feel him nod, the air going up and down as he displaces it. “Once the blast happened, you called out my name a few seconds later. Yelled it is a more appropriate term.”  

I’m blushing now, I hate that my body has betrayed me and has given up a truth he can pick up on. I can try and work with saying I was calling Foggy’s real name. That wouldn’t work out well. Frank wouldn’t believe something so convenient and misplaced. Plus, no one has called Foggy Nelson by Franklin in his life; even his damn parents don’t call him that anymore. Franklin is as much of a foreign name to Foggy as it is to me.

I bite my lip in thought. How am I going to word this? I can’t go and tell the exact truth. “I don’t know, I guess, I just heard your voice in the back. I was… worried.”

He stands there in the chair, quiet and broody. I feel awkward looking at him now, it’s like I’m being cross examined by him. I mean I’m used to that sort of thing, but usually I’m on the other side of the cross examination.

“You heard me?” I’m glad he doesn’t comment on the worried part. Well more or less.

"Yeah," he nods again. "I more or less saw you on the ground from standing so close screaming at the restaurant for me. The question I'm asking is how?" 

“I don’t know. I have  _sensitive_ hearing, Frank. It’s not unusual for me to hear things that far.”

“What’d you hear?” the question beckons like a bad omen. I feel slightly on edge now, like saying the wrong thing will lead to more than just Frank being disappointed. I don’t really understand it until Frank stands up and the movement sends an echo of danger to me.

I can see it all under his clothes. There are two big guns hidden in his torso, a knife in the back and a hidden gun on his left leg.

I sway my head back and forth, the motion a little shaky as I feel panic rise. I press my fingers on my palm, pricking it with the pressure, letting the pain calm me. “I don’t know. It was just mumbles and then the gun fire freaked me out. I heard someone named Calvallo and that’s-“

 “-how the fuck did you really know I was there?” he says, moving so fast that he becomes a blur of wind, and soon he’s pressing a silencer on my forehead. I can feel the machinery inside it, the compartments, and the all too chilling fact of piecing the smell to the gun powder that I had previously smelt on Frank last night. It scares me that I still find the smell so comforting that I feel sick with revulsion and a dreaded calmness.

“Frank.” It’s a ghost of a word to me, haunting and chilling to say his name now with his gun on me, on a stranger who holds nothing against him.

“Are you working with them? You’re some agent for them?” I hear the sound of his teeth grinding, and it’s a horrible sound to hear in this moment. I don’t understand what he means, confused and utterly helpless right now. I gulp in composed terror. My hands are involuntarily shaking, but not in fear or panic, I’m priming myself to strike away his hand in a futile attempt to live.  I know if I do any of that, he’d shoot in an instant. My brain is racing, feeling adrenaline rush into my system to wake my addled brain to think of anything to get the gun out of my face.

“Answer me, Red, or I swear to god I’ll blow your goddamn head open.”

“I-I felt your heart,  _Frank_.” I start with a simple truth, trying to diffuse the situation.

“Don’t you dare make shit up.” He’s pressing harder, making an obvious indent on my forehead.

“I’m not lying to you, Frank. I-I know you’re carrying a serrated knife in your left pocket,” I utter with as much finesse and calmness as I can muster. “I can find the other gun in your pocket, and the small revolver in your right foot.”

The guns still pressed on my forehead. “Doesn’t explain shit to me. You can tell shit like that easily if you’re trained.”

I’m grinding my teeth now, too, only because of the sheer insanity of this moment.  

“Frank,” I say as collected as possible once I stop grinding my teeth. “I’m. Not. A. Spy,” I say, pronouncing each word with definite clarity. “I wasn’t there to hurt you. I came along to eat there, and coincidentally heard your…your heart beat. I swear that’s all I was doing there.”

I can feel his finger press slightly on the trigger.

“Frank, you’re giving me no room to explain to you properly.”

I hear his finger pull down farther, it’s painfully slow and terrifying to listen.  

“Time’s up, Red.”

He’s still going slowly though, a skewed window of opportunity to convince him once more.

I gulp again as I speak to him for what almost feels like the last time.

“Your heart is different,” I say steadily as I begin, and then speak firmly so he knows there’s more. “It’s different from other heart beats. It’s fast, it’s loud… and it’s broken,” I whisper the last one weakly in sadness.

“They’re called heart strings.” I don’t know if I say that out loud or not, because the rush of blood in my ears and face is sound shattering for some reason. It’s relief that I hear from my heart and veins because he is no longer pressing down on the trigger. His attention is fully on what I have to say now as he patiently leaves the gun on my forehead. He’s doubting now.

“The scientific name is Chordae tendineae, these are the same tendons that relax and tense to open and close valves, they also keep the structure of the heart strong.” The gun is still on me, but I can sense his finger isn’t even on it anymore. I feel relief flow through me again, but it’s not as loud as before. I continue with my speech. “Did you know that under dangerous strain and emotional trauma it can weaken or break them?” he doesn’t respond or do anything. I continue as I motion my arm forward, defiant to make a point. I press my hand on his chest, feeling the pulse once again through his chest. His heart is beating. 

“Last night I didn’t think much about it, but I feel it in your heart, Frank. The entire silhouette of your heart is in grim, dark outlines for me to look at. The strings on some parts are broken and ripped. I can see it so clearly in your chest now, how visible they are for such tiny parts. It’s tragic looking at them,” I admit in sorrowful pity.

It’s like those unrealistic things about life that you keep in the back of your head, things that just didn’t seem practical or reasonable to dream of, that is until real life proof is shown, or in this case, the palm of my hands. Just looking at it, how not only the sound and feel is different, but how strong and resilient it is.

 _How is he alive?_  I feel tears down my eyes I hadn’t noticed I’d been making. “You’re a broken man, Frank Castle.”

The gun is gone just as quickly as he walks out of my room. He doesn’t say anything as he leaves _, no words left to say now_.  

The breath that escapes from my mouth is exhausting, bone tinging and heavy. I bang my head against the headboard of the gurney in some form of frustration or confused state. I don’t really know what I’m feeling now. Fear? Pain? Sadness? It’s a mixture of all these emotions rolled into one.

In the end I just stare at the ceiling for a while, pensive and restless.

_Who the hell is Frank Castle?_

 

 


	5. There Are No Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one came a bit later. i'm figuring out how to plan the next few chapters, so it'll probably be a while until the next one comes out.

_I’m glad you’re okay, Matt._

Okay? Is that what I am today?

Karen said that to me a few days ago prior to being released from the hospital.

I don’t really know what to be right now, or what to feel at all today. Still reeling with the interrogation from Frank, unsure and more confused than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Hey? Are you good, Matt?”

“I’m fine, Foggy.”  

Foggy had taken careful precaution to get me to my house, aiding me up the stairs and opening the key for me.

“Are you sure? Because you seem kind of…I dunno, more out of it than usual.”

I snicker lightly at his descriptive words. “What exactly is _it_ that’s wrong?”

“You know, _it,_ ” he says it again like repeating it will get the point through. It does, but not from his explanation, more from the way his voice seems concerned. “It’s just, like, you being laid back and more in your head than usual. I mean you’re normally reserved, but this time you’re not able to hide it as easily, and that worries me, Matt. If you I can pick it up it must be bothering you more often than usual, whatever _it_ is.”

I raise my hands up in front of Foggy to rest on his shoulders. “I’m just tired, Foggy, that’s all. Nothing to worry over.”

Foggy crosses his arms, his body language suggesting he doesn’t believe me but I know he won’t pester me. He knows that if it’s really a problem, I’ll tell him. I am his best friend after all.

Predictably, Foggy doesn’t question it, and hugs me gently, saying a quick ‘get better’ while he leaves me be.

I close the door and sit down on the couch in pure exhaustion. I wasn’t lying when I said I was tired. I was unable to sleep what with the trauma of being held at gunpoint fresh in my mind. I had half the thought to tell the police about what had happened.

But I doubt they’d help, much less be able to do anything. I doubt Frank leave’s clues if he’s cocky enough to walk in with guns at a hospital.

The police aren’t much help at all in general for me. They had asked Karen and Foggy for questions about what they might have heard or seen when the shootings happened.

They didn’t ask me.

I guess I couldn’t blame them in any way. I couldn’t technically ‘see’ in their way, so I was no help to the police as much as I’d like to, having not the courtesy or possibility to give them info for their insolence. I mean I couldn’t really tell them much of anything anyways. I’m pretty sure I don’t even have substantial evidence in the first place.

All I have is two names. One is Franks and the other is a guy named Cavallo. I don’t even have a first name. I don’t even know if that’s even his last name, too. I know Franks. Frank Castle. I’m certain that that’s the only thing I know about him.

It’s always back to him now. I can’t stop thinking about him now. Is this some twisted form of stock-holm syndrome? I mean he didn’t technically kidnap me or hold me hostage. It was just strange that I was bonding with Frank while he held me at gunpoint.

I’m certifiable for sure because of him, because of this situation, because I continually end my thoughts about _him_.

But I didn’t have much else to do in terms of work or life. Not that I wasn’t like that already, it’s just a forced thing now. As of yesterday, I’ve been taken off the case and been forced to take a 2 week paid vacation under both Jeri and Karen’s orders. I vehemently tried to argue with them, but to no avail, as I was already forced into a cab from trying to go to work in the early morning, back to my house, where I was told to be done with anything that didn’t involve resting and pacing myself from my concussion.

I don’t think they knew that I didn’t pace myself or rested. I wasn’t that kind of human being.

But I knew that I wasn’t able to work on the case whether I liked it or not. Like really work on it. I wasn’t focused, or capable of doing the case with bona fide justice in the current stress of the situation I was in.

I was stuck now. To be quite frank, I was bored out of my mind to have nothing to do today that I ended up taking a walk, as a way to try and distract myself. I realize now that it’s a terrible life to be left with no distractions for a few weeks that you have to decide to be one of those people who take walks to clear their minds.

But I concede to taking the walk. Just a simple walk down the streets (this one is strictly the leisurely kind) the ones you think are calming and helpful to your mental state. Not really calming or helpful to me. It’s just tiring to excuse people and hear their little gasps of pity when I walk by. It’s annoying to hear their gossip and frustration at giving me space for my cane in the crowded sidewalk of the Kitchen. I do my best to ignore it by not doing it so often.

But here I am, taking a brisk walk in the Kitchen again, annoying all that is around me as I paddle around with my stick.

I feel like a recluse now thinking about it. I wasn’t always this bothered by it, or really I just never noticed the negativity back then. Now, though, I’m just a receptor to it all, plaguing myself with all the terrible truths of the world.

I don’t know how to un-see the world now. I know the world really isn’t all that terrible, but it’s a lie I’ve believed in and now I’m unable to tell the truth about it now.

Frank brings that ‘lie’ even closer to my life with each second that I think about him. He’s stumbled into my life and made my shitty world already shittier by adding this nonsense into it. Nonsense I can’t even begin to understand. It gnaws on my consciousness, unable to repress the memory, to just forget and move on like I normally would. It’s too real, it’s not something I can control with the law or simple wits.

I stop in my tracks so suddenly that a few strangers yell at me for stopping. I mildly say sorry, but for the most part ignore it. It’s with total absent shock that I find myself edging closer to the pizzeria. I grind my teeth, and turn around, forcing myself to move from this unstoppable curiosity.

I turn towards the crosswalk instead, and decide to stop by the local café when I smell the scent of brewed coffee, and there I order one and a sandwich. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until now; I finish my sandwich before I even drink my coffee. The taste is too bland for me, so I pour two sugars and two creams into the cup, and intermittently gulp down the warm liquid to keep my nerves calm. It’s with no coincidence that I stand close to the window, towards the restaurant where I’m able to hear the cops and forensics milling around the place.

I sit there a bit resigned at myself. I’m not strong enough to ignore this now, too stubborn to ignore or forget it now. I keep telling myself that if I learn what happened here, that’ll I’ll be set free from it. I don’t need to further myself down this inconsequential path.

Would it be that simple? Hopefully. Plus, it was better than just waiting around and figuring if Frank would magically explain what the hell that bullshit he pulled last night was. I doubt he’d even try to show up. I’m fairly certain holding someone at gunpoint is a strong message they don’t want to see you at all.

I stop thinking about that fact resolutely, I instead perk up my head, picking up the faintest sounds of their conversation, homing in on the cops from across the street at the bombed restaurant, spying on what they’ve deduced. I didn’t let myself feel too bad about the fact that I was breaking total confidentiality of a case I wasn’t working on. I couldn’t ignore the ebb of interest lead me here to do what I was doing. I was crashing in like a wave to know what the hell Frank Castle was doing here yesterday.

I pick up on a particular conversation with the detective and an officer.

_3 dead from the blast, all of them were armed, two of the guys were workers Jon Amaro and Casey Ucci._

_What about the third one?_

_It’ll be a while till we can figure out the 3rd victim. The guy apparently wasn’t anyone who worked there since everyone on their schedule has been accounted for. The guy was vaporized, center stage in the fucking blast zone, nothing of the guy left we could ID._

_Jesus, what the hell fucking happened here? A bombing at a local pizzeria? Strangest place to aim for if it’s a terrorist attack._

_So it’s not. It’s most likely a gang related one._

_The two guys were apparently related with the Dogs Of Hell._

_This case is gonna be a bitch to explain to home office. Think it's the same thing like last time?_

_Don't know for sure. I wouldn't put it out of question though._

_Dogs Of Hell_? There’s a part of me relieved that Frank didn’t cause the bombing. It helps ease the nagging in my head that he isn’t completely at fault for what happened here. 

I can focus my anger at someone now, the Dogs Of Hell.

But what does Frank have to do with that particular gang?

Nothing useful comes up after that conversation. It's more cryptic leads and routine work with collecting evidence and taking the bodies. It’s all speculation on their part without my info. I know some of the why, but not at all about what or how that led to these events to transpire.

The why can be explained with Frank. But what led to the bomb to occur? Or how? The third guy had come into the picture sometime when we evacuated the building.

I wait around until they’re all done with their forensic work, loitering around in the local café for a few more hours as I finally hear them to pack up and leave the crime scene. As soon as that happened, I took my cue to cross over the warning tape and entered the premises.

The smell is hideous. The kitchen doesn’t even resemble a kitchen anymore, all covered in ash and a mixture of melted chemicals. It’s ghastly and toxic to smell that it’s almost tiring not to gag. I stay resilient though, searching, and sensing around for evidence they might have overlooked.

The blood scent is nearly gone, denatured from the blast to leave a bitter taste in my mouth.

I near closer to what’s left of the stove and smell the putrid scent of blood, and then another one by the backdoor that leads to the exit, and find that the center of the blast damage comes from what I assume was the fridge across a few feet from where I am. Each person’s blood is at a different corner of the room. I look around the walls too, finding tiny holes from gun bullets behind each of their respective areas. So it looks like it had turned into a crossfire against one other before the bombing happened.

So where did Frank fit in? I look around again, smelling and tasting the air for another scent.

I smell a different blood near the entrance to the dining room area from the kitchen, the scent is stronger and fresher this time, but muddled in alcohol. It leads to a trail behind the bar area. Someone was resting here when the crossfire was happening.

It’s must be Franks. It has to be.

The trail still continues even past the bar, and it trickles to the emergency exit cut off by a broken beam. I follow it as I crawl under it to open the door, and I smell clean air again as I leave to follow the scent of blood that trickles in tiny blots from time to time on the road.

It juts and turns into alleyways from time to time, like the scent was trying to evade bystanders or onlookers by walking through building corridors. I follow it, not at all fully understanding the incessant need to do so, but still deciding to. But really, why am I following it? This scent, this person? Why can’t I let go of Frank Castle? The thought makes me want to rip my hair out of my head in frustration for an answer.

Always nagging, begging my mind to ease. The thought of Frank brings more of a strange worry that leads me to question my quality of mental health.

I find it though, find these small pools of blood near a lamplight. The trail goes cold for a while because I lose it for a second, but then find it once again moving forward. I keep doing this for who knows how long, searching and finding for what possibly could be a dead end. But I know it isn’t. I’m absolutely certain this leads to him.

I find myself walking around a particularly far off residence that I’m not familiar with. I keep my footsteps fast and quick, alert to anyone trying to find me or possibly trailing. No one is nearby though. I didn’t think so. The scent finally leads me to a rundown building that a few people live in. I brace myself when I open the rusty entryway, where I walk along the frayed walls and up the stairs to find a particular door knob with the smell of his blood. I keep my hand steady on the doorknob, taking serious precaution as I sense around his room. Franks not in it…but there’s the sound of a small heartbeat.

Momentarily I’m perplexed, until I remember that Frank said he owned a dog; and that does resemble a dog panting from the other side. I can sense the door is locked, but luckily I also find a small pin on the ground a few feet away, nearly tucked into the crevice of the wall. I pick it up and soon jam it into the lock, gently prying the mechanism to open. With a resounding click inside of the knob, it opens, and I enter quickly before anyone can notice me.

A dog greets me the moment I enter the room.

I hear the sound of it growling at me, priming itself to jump. I stand still, and smell around, finding the dog treats near the counter. I move slowly to grab one and gently kneel down to its level, let it nip at my fingers, as I whisper: “Calm down, you’re a good boy aren’t you?” His reply is a bark and just wags his tail in patience, I feed him another one, and soon the giant pitbull jumps at me to slobber all over my face, giving me a strong waft of the kibble and dog treats he’s eaten. After a while, the dog loses interest in me now that he knows I’m not a threat, and looks for something else to most likely slobber on.

 _Huh._ I guess there is a soft spot in the man wrought in gun powder and iron. It ruins the image of him being as hardy and emotionless as I thought.

I can smell canisters of gun powder overpowering the room, and the rough scent of mixed metals, alloys? Is he reinforcing his bullets? I’m terrified of his need to have that especially when looking at the sizable collection of guns he has, all ranging from machine gun to mini revolvers, and all equally polished and finished with some residue oil. It’s impressive, the way it’s all set up, like an expert marksman would set it, but it’s still excessively violent to look at that I feel ill, and it’s absolutely not because I smell the stale canned soup open on the table along with rotting mystery canned meat adds to my ill feeling though. Frank hasn't been back for a while. 

It’s all just a swirl of nasty smells and gun oil.

I move myself away from the table now, moving on to the bed area. I assume he’d keep something important on the nightstand, something that would lead me to tell me where he’s been or who his next target is.

I don’t find anything of that nature when I open the drawer. I do find a necklace though, put away in the corner, I lift it up carefully, the chain dangling haphazardly as I realize there’s a square shaped metal plate as the center pendant. I go to grab it, feeling the item in my hand, these are Frank’s initials on it, his blood type and a bunch of other numbers and symbols that I can’t really understand.  

But I know what they are.

Dog-tags.

He was a soldier.

Frank Castle was a soldier.

It makes a lot of sense now. Always armed to the teeth and bone. And he seems to carry himself with a particular comfort while holding a gun. It’s like he’s use to it, like he’s been carrying one since he was young man. 

I let out an irritated breathe as I look around for something, anything to find or sense. There really isn’t much around the place left to look, it’s spartan, much like mine, just efficient enough to be useful for day to day to life. But Frank takes it another notch up that it makes it look like the dog is more pampered than Frank is. I think the dog has its own personal room in the corner, with a bed-rest that’s filled with cotton and chew toys. It looks infinitely more comfortable than that spring poking mattress of his.

I look around more, trying to find anything useful to answer my questions. I was here for questions, not light stalking Frank. I try not to think about how inaccurate ‘light’ stalking sounds now.

I drop the dog tags into the corner again, letting the clank resonate around the nearly empty place.

My senses perk up suddenly, there’s a wall that juts out, like a board on the wall. I notice they’re strewn with tiny formatted papers. Photographs of something. I go closer to look at it, and find newspapers and files on the board. I go to grab one and lightly feel the imprints on the paper. Reading out the words is easy since the ink is raised enough to be decipherable.

It’s a simple bio on certain criminals, where they’ve been, what they’ve done. And there’s also one quick report on recent findings of designer drugs. Cavallo is connected to this, his name is mentioned multiple times on one of the expose. He’s a drug lord that Frank is trying to find. Was the pizzeria a recent drop off place? Was that why he was there? Did he do something to cause Franks ire?

I came here looking for answers and so far I’ve mostly gotten more questions to ask. All I can tell for certain though is that Cavallo is on Franks hit list.

I put it back in the exact position it was and head out for the door. There really isn’t anything else that’s helpful in this room now. Nothing has eased this curiosity, just piqued it further into obsession.

Before I leave out the door though, I kneel on the ground again to pet the dog. I notice something again when I pet it this time. I promptly begin refilling his water and kibble in their respective bowls. I hope Frank doesn’t mind that or notices it.

Once I exit the door, I head back home again. I’m done my leisurely walk now. All that’s left is to find him.


	6. Turn Away

The thing with being blind is that you develop an incessant need to be better, so you don’t get undercut by the pity and unneeded compassion. You strive for more than what is necessary, you need to work harder and be better because of your disability. The first thing they did when I was blind at 9 was put me through programs and special needs classes where I was shoved a plethora of woes and inspirational stories about people fighting their disability. I disliked that. I was blind. That’s all that they needed to tell me. I was a kid who could accept something like that if only they’d made it seem less terrible to be blind. 

I never looked at my disability as a loss, well I used to, but that’s just because everyone forced that ideology on me. I really actually gained more from my loss of sight. I ‘see’ the world in more detail than the average person, having more capabilities and advantages than most people.

I guess I don’t naturally have the normal blindness that other blind people have. I’ve deviated of course. But I still hold strong on my belief that my blindness was a positive thing. It was a sensory gain. I became more of who I am because of it. I developed an identity wholly sanctioned on my ‘loss.’

So really it comes to no surprise that I’m capable of fighting people with ease.

I am a mass of contradictions after all. Fighting has always been easy for me. 

Well it’s not _easy_ in the technical sense. It’s tiring and repetitive with punching, kicking and slamming down objects on people. It also helps that I can sense everything around me, feel all their breath and heart beats so I know where they are constantly.

My head perks up. He’s going to strike me on the left with his footing all wrong. I shake my head absently as I turn around in a quick low sweep to knock him off his feet with, hear the thud and breath of air as the wind gets knocked out of him.

I was taught very well by an asshole of a master. A master that forced that incessant need to be excellent into honing skills that I wasn’t questioning on being given. I was just glad someone was capable of understanding that my blindness wasn’t something to be seen as a disability. I was able to be taught martial arts (he had called it self-defense) like I was just a kid who’s eyes just so happened to not do anything. He helped me understand my sensory capabilities, letting me sense the world in different ways than what other people would see.

I don’t like talking about him too much, but I’m not going to deny that he didn’t teach me valuable skills.

It's more than that, what he taught me, but the thought runs away when I notice there’s another guy behind me, trying to surprise me with a blade in his hand. I dodge his jab with ease. Now he’s left open with his hands out now. I quickly elbow him in the face that he keels over and lands face first on the ground.

I hear the sounds of groaning and unconscious breathing as I make my way up the staircase of the building. It wasn’t particularly easy getting up here. I mean the main plan was to get Cavallo when he was going into his car. I mean, for a wanted man this guy pretty much walks around freely Hell’s Kitchen. It was strange that Frank had trouble finding this guy, I mean it was quick work finding where he was. This guy was out in the open for the police to arrest.

But they didn’t.

That was strange all in itself. Something made this guy different from any other criminal.

But he didn’t seem like much. I mean it was supposed to be a lot easier than beating up a bunch of criminals in a warehouse.

Theoretically it was supposed to be _easy_.

Theoretically I did not have to do any of this.

Theoretically Cavallo would not have nearly ran me over with his car and crashed into a parking lot a few yards away to create a diversion where he  had enough time to enter a building.

Theoretically that building wouldn’t happen to be the place where a crime boss and his cohorts would also be residing in.

I had previously surveyed him from the rooftops last night, when he was with his crew, doing simple recon and figuring out where he’d be for the night. I kept listening to conversations, overhearing about drop-offs of large drug shipments (which I would later tip to the police on their locations) and recent distributions to a far off district with the Russians. I heard Frank’s voice in the conversation a few times. They seemed to be pissed at him for blowing up recent storage facilities they’d been using as a hideout. He seemed resolute in keeping Frank at bay from him though.

So Frank had been able to find them, he just wasn’t able to catch Cavallo for some reason.

I didn’t exactly believe a soldier like Frank wouldn’t be able to catch a small criminal like Cavallo. I mean he wasn’t that well-guarded, and he walked with ease to his car without anyone by his side.

I kept myself cautious, letting his carefree actions to tell me to be wary.

That was a mistake. I edged around too much, and didn’t try to overtake him when I had the chance.

He escaped with a quick jab to my ear, disorienting me, moved to his car where he skittered on the road with panic, with him driving to where I was trying to recuperate from the surprise blow. I rolled over with one strong push, and groaned as I breathed out. I heard Cavallo escaping, stopping his car, and entering the warehouse.

I was more than pissed at myself that I going in one to twenty wasn’t a completely stupid idea.

I sighed, rubbing at my bruised knuckles, totally withdrawn from the moment as I continued walking around the groaning bodies of men, all in states of unconsciousness or feigning it. I took the walk carefully, listening to the only heartbeat on the top floor of the warehouse.

Cavallo.

His heartbeat is still calm, still steady as I entered the room. I felt him move around, his body turning towards mine. I heard a snicker come out of his mouth promptly as he sat down easily on his desk.

“You’re exactly what I need to fix my problem.” His laughter is harking.

I stare at him, confused and wary again for his boastfulness. I don’t answer him, just wait out as he sits carefree at his desk.

“I could use you to kill Frank Castle,” the man says as casually as he nips at one particular nail. “Well, at the very most you’d hinder him for a bit while I get my shipment out, and I really am on a deadline or else he will have my head.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I say, completely confused by his words. “Who’s _he_? Who are you working for?” I ask differently this time.

“You don’t need to know, sweetheart. You’re worth 50 men with your skill, comparable to that with that Castle guy.” I hear his hands clasp together as he rubs them, he’s laughing as he stands up. I feel the air displace around him, hand motions?

I step closer and I hear his heart beat skip faster.

It’s a quick scuttle, moving forward as I punch him straight in the face.

I expected something to happen in that moment, but nothing did. I wanted to be cautious, but I learnt that inaction can be just as dangerous. If I wanted to test his capabilities I was going to have to fight first.

But this wasn’t what I expected, his scrounging on the ground, trying to run away, yelling at me in some incantation. It’s easy picking him up off the ground, pushing him against the wall as I ask him again the same question.

“Who are you working for?” I push him harder against the wall and hear him gasp. He spits blood into my face.

“You and that bastard ask the same fucking questions, but I’m not fucking answering that.”

“Tell me now or you’re going to die tonight.” It’s as much of a lie as I can muster, but in his condition I’m sure he’ll be believe it.

“You’re an idiot for even asking something like that. You don’t want to find this guy. I’m dead even if I tell you.”

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Who the fuck do you work for?” I pull him off the wall, throwing him on the floor, not at all a graceful fall. He’s still laughing.

“You’re gonna fucking regret this,” he spits out.

He jumps at me, fast, impossibly fast for someone who’s breathe got knocked out from the floor, and is shaking off one of his punches without a faze and grabbing my arms. But I shake him off me, his hands going for my head, pulling off the ski-mask over my eyes.

His body goes limp as he looks at me, his hands losing strength as he falls on the floor again this time of his own volition. 

“You can’t see?” he says, shocked and terrified by that truth as he drops the ski-mask from his hands. “It won’t work on you.”

“What won’t work?”

His face is blank against mine, defeated and limp still. “You can’t be hypnotized without sight.” 

Hypnotized? It dawns on me what he’s really saying, on what it’s insinuating. His trump card, his reason for being cocky and boastful, thrown away like a deck of cards with my disability. 

“Did you hypnotize Frank Castle?” I ask him, putting pieces together even further, letting my mind race off with further possibilities to know their truth.  

“What do you think?” he says with venom as he sits there, arms crossed over his knees, trapped in the room away from escape. “We tried to kill him off, but the boss saw him as useful tool. So we made him do the work for a bit for us.”

“What did you make him do?” I demand in clenched anger. How violated that must be to not have control over your own body, to have no will as you get tricked into doing something.

 “Not much, okay. He was able to figure out pretty quick on how it worked, was able to free himself after doing a two missions with us. He just worked to get us intel and killed a bunch of an opposing gang to get our drug supplies cleanly into their city.”

That’s why Frank was so wary when they met at the hospital. It makes sense.

I’m so angry at them for hurting Frank like that, of using a man like him as a toy. It’s unreasonable to be so angry for a stranger, but I feel it regardless, feel it so unnecessarily and so powerfully. I can’t begin to understand why, but I don’t need to think about it now because someone wronged Frank. I can feel that for any person, of any stranger, to feel any modicum of compassion for them when a fault has happened to them.

“That’s all that you did?”

“Yes, yes. I swear that’s it. Frank Castle blew up our base and got away after that.”

I feel the sudden urge to be proud of him, of Frank, and him escaping. I squash it down quickly. I don’t need to feel anything else for that man.

“Tell me who you work for? Who is your boss?” I say it clear, concise, and easy for me to find my next lead. Cavallo is just one person in a bigger problem apparently. I didn’t expect this to be easy, so why was I thinking this one criminal was what Frank was looking for? Frank is complicated and this whole situation is more corrupt than originally thought to be.  

“He’d kill me if I tell you that,” his heart rate is increasing, panicking and skittering. It’s a loud drum to my ear as I near closer to him. “I’m loyal to him, please, he’s got to know I’m useful still!”

“What the fuck are you saying?” I bring down my fist, just above his top lip, right in the teeth to hurt. It’s a pain on my knuckles, but they’ve gone numb since the previous fight.

“Fuck you.”

I need answers, but nothing on what I know about how this spiral continued onwards and onwards until I’m no longer falling, I’m just moving through the motions because I can’t stop it.

I can’t begin to understand how this happened, how this destructive force I never realized I could have. Bringing down my fist again, I feel like all the rage is pouring out of me, of relieving me of the stress of today, of the lunacy and ridiculousness. It’s a pit I’ve fallen in now, and I’m still continuing to fall as I bring my fist down again on the guy and I feel his nose break under my fist, feel the blood rush to his cheeks as they bruise. No fear and no guilt. I’m not a monster, but I don’t feel human in this moment.

“I’m going to ask one more time, who are you working for?”

His heart trembles, like it’s taking a while before it beats again. “Fisk. Wilson Fisk,” he says the name with so much defeat and shame it’s palpable. I can hear his heart rate begin panicking even more if it’s even possible at this rate. He’s definitely scared of that name.  

I wrack my brain, trying to place a name to anything that I can remember. That name doesn’t remotely sound familiar, doesn’t even register in any of the countless of case files I have checked throughout my career. It’s a ghost of name like Franks.

It’s in that moment that he picks up speed, unbelievable speed and agility as he pushes me down. I didn’t expect him to run, especially when were on the top floor of the warehouse.

The exit is behind me so I’m confused as to where he could run. His movements erratic, demon-like as he sways in frenzy.

“I’m dead now,” he hears the man say, a whisper of a gasp as he jumps out the wall, the glass breaking, revealing it as a window that he jumped out of.

It’s not in escape, he realized far too late. The height, it’s what scares him, it was too steep to land without any sort of cushion. It was a dive for death.

He looks out through the window, peering down with his ears primed to the ground.

There’s the slow flutter of a heart beat slowly fading, dying out in a deflated sputter, the blood spreading around and pooling around till it loses heat.

I stutter a bit back, letting myself fall back in horrified surprise, falling with a resounding thud as I take in what happened.

There’s an insane moment where I think I killed him, where I was pushed him and wanted him to die. To explain his demise, to try and gain any window of perspective of why this had occurred.

Only one thing reasonable to think of, the cause of a man’s fear for his own life at the whisper of a name he’d die for it.

Wilson Fisk is a monster of a human being.


	7. It's Been Rough, But

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gah sorry for the long wait! but as of today I'm stressed on birthday events and works been stressful now that it's summer. 
> 
> which means chapters will take even longer to complete and post.

 

What do you do when something like this happens?

I say ‘something’ like it was nothing, like it was just the weather being bad or a slight inconvenience at work, just a simple _something._

I walk out of the abandoned warehouse, mousing my way out of the place from the rest of the waking gang members.

It’s not what I expected tonight to go for the very least. I mean it should have been what I was prepared to think was happening, but that is very different. It doesn’t help that I can hear the sounds of bones crushing and hearts stop beating with haunting sharpness.

But I should know that people die all the time. It’s nothing that I haven’t read from braille news reports or heard from the television, or from simply living in such a horrible place.

Life is a frivolous promise in Hell’s Kitchen. Life is an unforgiving false promise.

So it should come as no surprise that a gang member would die, or that something awful would happen at that place, it’s corrupt, it’s dangerous, and nothing is ever short of ever being easy, and it should never be easy in this situation. A situation, a situation, a situation. It’s just happenstance that he died.

Maybe it’s just shock, plain and simple. It hits too close to a place I haven’t been to since I was a little kid, where the repressed memory is like an elastic band that’s wound too tight and dangerous when let go. I remember the horrendous sounds of a beating heart ending, something so human and loud ending slowly and all too quickly at the same time. It’s quite traumatic to listen to no matter who they come from.

Remembering the loud bang, so loud that it had jerked me awake, and then searching relentlessly for him only to find him on the cold ground of an alleyway. I felt his face, felt the blood pooling around in the crinkles of his laughter lines, of his cold cheeks and lifeless body as I screamed at him to wake up. I kept looking for any distinct marker that would prove it wasn’t him. But it was, it was, it was.

I push back at the memory, feeling the chill on my spine and the shaking of my hands. I keep moving, but I’m aimlessly walking now like some child, trying to figure out where to get home from here. 

There’s a familiar smell that I pick up on, idle receptors that faintly remember them, but I concede thoughtlessly to walk towards it, more so just to find a path than too continue aimlessly walking.

I stop myself midway from completing a step, finally picking up the familiarity of the sounds and place. It’s not worrying in the least why I found myself here, how I suddenly got so close to enough to pick it up without any forethought. This place is close to Frank’s nearly deserted neighborhood.

Of course Frank would find a hideout close to where Cavallo and his men were. He was doing recon on them, and he’d need to be in relative distance for him to research and dole out all this information on them on the walls. I remember curtly about the police radio that was hanging on the counter table, listening to it pelt out police codes and back-up in a stern voice. It seemed out of place when I first heard it, thinking that it was nothing but a simple radio, but now I can pull those facts together more clearly.  

Out of all the places to find rest from tonight, wandering with injuries that aren’t too fatal, but just a tad too sore to not warrant some kind of suspicion or danger if I’m not going to jump building rooftops. It doesn’t seem practical or probable.

I could walk home, take the long route in between the city streets, but I’m beginning to underestimate the exhaustion with so little panic in in me now. The danger is gone, the adrenaline flushing out my system to let the pain and tiredness wash in slow waves.  

There are obvious markings of black or purple skin on my neck and collarbone, hiding it with relative ease from the long expanse of nylon from the compression shirt. Right now, my body feels like a canvas of pain and bruises that it’s enough to lighten the emotional panic.

My face isn’t any better, or it feels that way what with my shades hiding what little it can of the tender bruising on his temple and cheeks. His top lip is braised, skin red and bloody from a particularly nasty punch he wasn’t prepared for when taking 3 of them down. Then there’s a cut from barely blocking a knife on his shoulders. It’s still bleeding, but he’s patching a strong hand over it, stopping blood flow to trickle out.

I bust open the door with no finesse this time, just shuck it over with a strong kick to break the lock. Frank probably won’t mind at all that he’s snuck into his place not once, but twice again.

This time making more of a statement that I did.

It’ll be a good welcome. That is, if Frank is going to come here. Frank should be here soon enough. It’ll be moot if he doesn’t come by. I have the strange thought that he might be off at another hideout to stay out of their suspicion. The people in the ware-house had said that Frank was a big nuisance now more so than usual. He might have been trying to lay low.

The dog isn’t here, I think curiously. I didn’t hear its little heart beating when I busted the door open, and if I had done that then it should have been barking at the loud intrusion. I guess Frank did find another place to hide out in the meantime while he was doing work on the case. I don’t like the cold feeling that gives me. It doesn’t matter. I have to take care of my arm at the moment.

Suddenly at its mention, I feel my arm throb again, and I go to find anything useful for me to fix it instead of pondering where Frank and his dog are right now. For now, I’ll just safely assume that I came here for a quick clean up on my injuries, and then head out with a note on the table when Frank gets back. Frank can leave me the bill on the replacement for his new doorknob if he wants to.

I breathe in fully again, my scent picking up the sterile and clean smell of the medical kit, along with gauzes and bandages tucked away in the corner where I assume is a bathroom. I open what is actually the bathroom door with ease, letting myself enter and with slight difficulty trying to find the cabinet doors knobs that isn’t painful when I crouch to unlatch it.

Taking it out with a heave once I pull it out, relieving the box of its contents when I sit down on the edge of the bathtub. I feel around, looking for the gauzes and rubbing alcohol and a stitching kit. I set it down on the linoleum floor, and then I remove the gloves on my hand, gingerly feel around the wound on my shoulder. It’s deeper than I thought it was, the flared skin is blistered and has covered most of my shirt and arm in blood. I rip off the shirt sleeve, letting the wound finally breathe and I bite down at the sensation of air biting at the sensitive flesh. I think about it for a quick second before taking the rest of my shirt off, letting the bruises feel strange against the breeze and no longer restricted under my shirt. I move to untie my shoes, and set them aside on the corner with the medical box. The socks are stashed inside them as I gently put my feet on the bathtub, the cold feel of fiberglass underneath jolts my senses awake again. I’m still sitting on the bathtub edge when I shake off my pants and underwear, moving to the other side as I brace myself to turn on the faucet first.

Lastly I pull off the cowl, and leave it all in a gentle pile on the sink counter in front of me. I try not to feel too sheepish with taking them off in someone else’s bathtub. Frank’s bathroom to be precise.

Everything seems to scream unfamiliarity as I adjust myself in a standing position in the shower. I search around for the shower head, moving it down to a better angle and then turning on the water to a warm spray. I let the water drip gently on my shoulders and wetting my head a bit, letting it pelt away the dried blood on my arm and clean out the wound before I stitch it. I take the soap that is thankfully perching on the shower rack along with shampoo and scrub. I forgo the scrub and just shampoo my hair quickly, where I’m careful not to let it get into my wound. I note the peppermint smell, though, lightly reminding me of Frank’s smell when I first met him. I lather my body soon after, even more careful to not let the wound bleed out as I maneuver down to clean up with the bar soap.

Lamely, I look around for a towel once I am done with my shower. It takes longer than it should have, but there’s a small basket where a towel rests inside. Belatedly, I figure out that it’s a used towel and my senses are hit with the strong scent of musk, and peppermint, and something so undeniably Frank. It’s not at all like the gun smoke or grime I usually smell from him, it’s deeper and unexplainable. I’m thankful though that it’s not very wet, and I rub myself dry with it without a second thought more.

I wrap myself with it and grab my clothes on the counter. I take a quick whiff of them again and realize I can’t wear these anymore, the smell is too rank and pungent with sweat to be comfortable. But I can’t just sit around in a towel either. That’s not an option I’m willing to test out.

A solution comes up quickly to my dilemma when I walk by another familiar scent, less repressed by the other strong smells of oil and gun-powder in the room now that I’m surrounded by Frank’s scent fully. It’s kept in a tiny closet, bare and nearly broken, but still functional. I hear the creaky sound of it opening and feel neatly tucked clothing folded in piles. It takes a few times, but I finally find both a pair of shirts and pants. I feel around the shirt, searching for any kind of marks or symbols on it or if it’s reversed, and come up with the name DISTURBED written on it with a straight line in the middle of the words. I halfheartedly smile at the band name, something I haven’t heard in quite a while. I pull up the pants second, finding them a bit larger than my own, but still comfortable enough even without underwear on with it.

I won’t wear the underwear that I also find in the closet. There’s an imaginary line that I will not cross or see ever when raiding someone’s things.

I still feel weird wearing them, even if I already crossed those other lines easily, but digress to move on, as I head back to the bathroom and clean up the mess from not being able to find the towel from before. I soon pick up the medical box and sit again on the bathtub edge. I pull over the shirt, the hem coming over my head and the sleeve resting on top of my shoulder. I don't want to get it dirtied with blood too much. 

Once it’s done I search around for what I assume is the stitching kit in the box, and find myself gladly removing the needle and thread, and then tirelessly trying to loop it in together. I clench my teeth after what seems the 20th time, licking at the thread and focusing on where the hoop is to get it in.

I give up after a while, letting out a testy exhale, and just deciding to wrap it in gauze. It’ll have to do now to keep the bleeding at bay, but it won’t heal fully if I don’t stitch it. I don’t want to assume help, but I’ll be willing to be hopeful. I mean Frank should _owe_ me for holding me at gunpoint. I think that holds some emotional crutch. If Frank’s able to let that affect him.

It’s more of a waiting game now.

I’m not certain what I’m waiting for exactly. Answers? More questions to figure out? Something to hold on to until this all starts becoming clearer.

Maybe I want to clear my head.

It’s awkward at first, trying to find a comfortable spot to rest that isn’t the bed or sit uneasy on a stool. The couch is the best middle ground, but it’s not exactly perfect for laying down and resting for a while. I tolerate the tiny frame and let my feet hang on the edge. I still feel awkward with the whole situation, not at all ready to meet with Frank in a position like this.

There’s nothing that’s comfortable in Franks house, but that’s a weak lie even for his standards. It’s not the place he wants something from, it’s the person who stays here. 

It doesn’t take long for me start contemplating on tonight’s situation now that I’m in some semblance of okay.

As okay as I can for tonight.

But contemplation has me idling my thoughts, making me light-headed with exhaustion, and then it happens all too quickly, the ease of which my eyes feel heavy and clouded with sleep. I don’t even mean to sleep, don’t even mean to stay on the couch for long, just to wait out for Frank to come by.

The feel of a dogs face licking at my nose immediately wakes me up again from reverie. I pull away so fast that I know for certain I’m bleeding through the gauze now, and my ears pick up on a small but fast heartbeat along with a stronger dominant one.

_Frank._

My mind slowly wakes up a bit more, more so because of the dog pushing his face against to lap at me. I don’t know how long I’ve been out but it must have been for an hour or so. The dog is still licking at my face when I try to stand up and put my feet on the ground. His paws find rest on my knees and laps under my chin which is about as comfortable as needles pricking at my skin. I push the dog back with a bit more force only because of the pain, but rub the scruff under his jaw amiably once he sets down to show appreciation.

“Is that my shirt?” It’s a question that causes me to feign confusion for a bit to come up with a reply. I don’t have one because there is no good answer to that.

I bite my lip slightly and somewhere away from where Frank is and admit rather dejectedly that I am.

“This ain’t a hotel, Red. Find your own rest stop.” I half expected him to tell me to take them off, but I’m guessing that would send the wrong message fairly easily.

I gently prod at my bandaged shoulder and look at him, unimpressed still, not appreciating his tactlessness, and I try not to find the hypocrisy of that because I basically was tactless with how I broke in. “I know it’s not, but it’s closer than my place.”

“So?” he says bored and slightly agitated with my presence. I mostly expected cursing and angry accusations, but this is a comforting surprise. I guess I don’t surprise him that much, but this nonchalant attitude still baffles me. It’s like he was expecting it some time. Had he known I came by last time? Was he aware that I entered his place and didn’t try to go after me like last time? Did I actually prove myself of my innocence when he held me at gunpoint?

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. It's puzzling as to why Frank's seemingly less than hostile, nearly bordering on cavalier about his inopportune service stop. It's much of a bigger question as to ask why  _why_   he's here, why he's chosen this place out of everything to reside in. 

Frank always brings back more questions than answers.

The dog barks cheerily at me, and I put my attention to petting it again. Frank calls him Max, and curses him to leave me alone, but I still continue to pet him, and he pants happily as I hear his tail wagging.

“Good boy,” I say more to chide Frank than greet the dog. “You’re a much better of a greeter than your owner.”

I hear a snide chuckle come out of him. “I don’t greet people who break my fucking lock open.”

I don’t even try for a sorry, just grimace at the fact. I know it hadn’t been thought out well, but I didn’t have much of an option to get inside. I wasn’t as lucky enough to pick locks my way in like last time.

“Desperate times, Frank.” I let my arms rest on my knees as I look at Frank to see if he’ll point a gun at me again. I doubt it, but I’m not going to try and act wary if he does.

“How bad is it?” he says instead of berating me further, where he leans in close to pat against the gauze and getting a pained yelp from me.

I glower at him as best I can from my spot on the couch. “Not too bad, but it’ll need stitching.”

Hearing a surprised ‘hmph’ come from him, and say, “You’re not breaking in my home and asking me to stitch your own wounds are you? Fucking squatter,” he says when I don’t reply.

I crease my eyebrows in contempt, “No, I just needed someone who can loop the thread in for me.” Hearing the bare whisper of a chuckle and I sneer at him crudefully. “Get me my kit then.” I do as he asks and motion the medical kit in his hands and rest on the couch again. He walks away and then I hear the soft scraping of a chair on the ground.

“I said I was capable of doing it on my own,” I say, going to reach for the medical kit for myself.

He clucked unsympathetically and brushes my hands away. “At that angle you won’t be able to properly close it. I’m not taking an aim at your pride by doing it for you.”

I roll my eyes at him and cross my arms. “And I assume you’re doing it out of concern?” It comes out more spiteful than chiding.

He doesn’t answer as quickly, hesitates on his words before saying, “just let me do it you stubborn ass.” He motions my shoulder towards him and starts threading the wound without any preamble. I hiss a bit at the pain when he goes to clean up some of the dried blood, but he continues it in a slow, practiced fashion.

“You’re not going to ask how I got these?”

“Everyone’s entitled to some privacy. I can’t say the same has been done for me,” he intones the word dubiously.

I can tell by the inflection of his voice he means about the other night I came by. I gulp at the double meaning behind them, _he knows for sure_. I just let it go though, Frank seems to, and it’s not at all important now that I’m here again.

I let my eyes look blindly up at him, trying to figure out his facial features as best I can, gauge out his reaction to my next question.

“Who’s Wilson Fisk?”

His hands stop midway from digging into my skin, and then continue his ministrations with the needle. “Where did you hear that name?” I feel him stitching faster, moving his fingers with even more speed as he threads, like he wants to finish as fast as possible to get away from me.

I think carefully for my next words and decide to sideline him, which seems the best strategy to get an answer from him.

“Cavallo said that right before he died.”

He doesn’t speak when I say this, he just finishes stitching it and cleans up the blood that drips from the wound. “Did you kill him?” he asks in a gruff tone. Not what I expected. He seems calm now, no longer surprised.

I ponder about that, about how casual the word ‘kill’ seems to come out of his mouth. He was bred as a soldier, but I don’t think he’s apathetic to death. “Do you think I could?” I ask him to gain more understanding. I think about the fight or flight situation he’s been through, the trauma as well, about how dangerous war can be, and that any moment you can die by making the wrong move. It’s kill or be killed in some situations. I don’t know how well I’d be in situations like that.

“No.” It’s a resounding statement, one, that I can’t for the life of me understand how he knows without any doubt or trepidation.

I look back at him now, facing him as he sizes up my other injuries with cursory shifts of his head. “In a way I did. Once I had forced the name out of him, he jumped out of the warehouse window in panic.”

He nods at the information, can feel him shaking in response, “He couldn’t control you, so you had him forced into a corner and he spilled because he was scared. Nicely done, Red.”

He’s not apathetic. Death is awful. But death to a criminal earns them spite and heartlessness. I can hear the venom, the: _couldn’t have done it better myself_ in his words.  I might take it as resentment, where he was mad about this particular person for violating them in all the wrong ways, just bitter and angry at not being able to control your own body.  I’m hopeful at least.

“I don’t feel nice about it, Frank. Someone died,” I whisper sullenly at the words.

“His death was a long time coming and you know that.”

“But it’s not _my_ choice.”

“Then what the hell are you doing fighting them?” he spits out the words heatedly. “We all got choices, Red. He chose his and you chose your own.”

I open my mouth to retort, but it dies in my throat. “But I could have saved him if I tried harder.”

He grabs my shoulders tightly, sending pain from my shoulder and making me lean against the couch cushions, can feel the ire and tiredness that’s caused by my words radiating out of him. “Don’t lie to me, Red. You’re not a _God,_ you can’t control outcomes like that, can’t force people to do things they don’t want, it’s a lost cause if you try any harder the first time. _You’re human_ ,” he say the word in a vicious truth. “You may not have went to kill him, but you should have known it wasn’t ending happily when you entered that warehouse.

“But-”

He shakes my shoulders and crushes our lips in a bruising kiss. “You may have started the fight, but that doesn’t mean the outcome was your fault,” he whispers the last words to my ears, making absolute sure I heard them.

I have no answer to that. It’s about as baffling to me as anything that’s happened so far, it’s stupefying, his words and his touch.

It’s a quiet standstill until I whip my arms around him and pull him closer to me, feeling his lips against mine and the electric feel of it all. I bite aggressively at his lips, and pull him close as I can, try to suffocate on the smells and sensations for as long as he allows me to. 

I needed this tonight. 


	8. Break Of Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So um I've split this chapter in half. it was really long and that's why it took a long time for me to write. sorry.  
> also i'm still a bit busy (working on something new) so pushing out chapters faster is likely not going to happen like i've wanted to.
> 
> also, like what is narrative/?  
> i'm going back and forth from different ones because of different stories im writing and ACKKKKKK

 

Tomorrow is different from last time. It’s not the same like last time. Not rushed or quickly put away, the warmth and comfortability of this kind of intimacy. Nowhere to go for now but to stay and bask in it.

His heartbeat is calm and relaxing, something so strange to hear now. It’s like sleep rests his soul to a slow patter. His chest hairs graze at my stubbled cheek and it’s a nice friction that I keep in the back of my head for future reference. Reference to what I don’t know yet. I just feel like keeping this moment somewhere deep in my mind.

I enjoy this little moment, all of it, keeping it in my mind for reference, too.

He moves slightly, so small and miniscule that an average person wouldn’t know for sure if it happened.

I feel him though. I also hear the pick-up start of his heart, then smooth out normally in quaint fractions of a second. Panic, just a momentary thing, but it worries him nonetheless with how awake Frank is now, his beating heart now the same loud noise it’s always been.

He stays though, keeps himself secured in the blankets and my touch. I expected him to leave once he woke up from that startle, but he settles his grip on me and lets me stay, like reinforcing a strange promise I hadn’t know he made with me. It’s significantly more intimate now with it being mutual. It’s no longer under the guise of sleep now, of addled brains and half thoughts that aren’t fully developed to make it real. It’s real now.

His fingers start idly circling around my back, tracing freckles I have never seen or scars I have never seen, but pictured in my mind as I felt them. The marks I’ve had from meeting this man.

He’s taking extra care in looking for them, in feeling them just like I did when I had gotten them, feeling them to know that they are there, that they mark you and makes what you did real. It’s both a morbid fascination and concerned tenderness, these touches.

His hands move to my arms, then to my hands, then to my bruised and small scabbed knuckles from last night.

I look up at him this time, when his fingers brush against them roughly, letting my undeterred gaze find Franks, and he looks back at me, his head craning to look at mine as our noses touch.

“Roughed them up real good didn’t you?”

 My voice sounds rough when I say: “Yeah.” It's easy to forget painful memories when I'm with him. It glosses over the awful emotions. It's a new defense mechanism to the hurt and guilt now. I smile to keep this affection. 

He nods to my response, encouraging and even more affectionate as he kisses my cheek, like he knows what I want, what I need. He shifts his body closer, sliding his marred skin against my own. War scars. I feel them all over his toned body, feel it in the muscle of his biceps and abdomen. Some are recent, but some feel like fresh scar tissue. It angers him as much as it scares him, these new scars.

He picks up on my previous panic, though, like he can sense panic the same way I can, tuned in to my own body as I am to his.

And maybe it’s not that hard, really. Any average person could if they looked hard enough. Frank can look. Frank is willing to do just that.

Reveals a truth about a world I'm not prepared to know yet. A world I'm still hiding from. Only showing a mask of myself to it. 

And maybe that’s why, suddenly, he brings my hands to his face. It’s awkward, how my hands stay still there until I realize what he’s actually doing. It’s like a quick ‘oh’ in my mind, and then just as quickly my hands uncurl themselves to feel his face with my fingerprints.

This is his reassurance, his okay to me in such intimate moment. I’m here to look at who Frank Castle is, who is more than just the scars and guns.

I feel stubble first on his face, feel how fuzzy the tips are that indicate Frank hasn’t shaved in a while. I move to the center. He has a strong nose, masculine and big, and deep set in-between his eyes, speaking of his eyes they also have crow’s feet on them, at the edges in beautiful crinkles. I roam upwards and downwards, finding military buzz-cut hair and furrowed brows on a tightly smooth forehead, and then downwards to find how his jaw curves into a slightly jutting chin. I find middle ground to his cheeks, which are full and soft, the only thing soft about his features.

And the scent is all over him now, I realize as I lazily search his face, how it has encompassed every part of Matt. It’s natural, how the smell seeps together, mingling with his own and becomes a myriad of different, yet harmonized scents.

I move downwards again, to his lips finally, which quirk slightly when I touch them, like he’s smirking. His lips feel softer against my hands than they do on my lips. Velvet and silk like.

“Handsome.”

His chuckle is drip drop sweet.

I don’t know how long the moment lasts, but it lasts for hours until both of them unwillingly split away, finding hunger and bathroom breaks a big motivator to get going.

I check on my wounds, finding the stitching still intact but refreshing the thought to clean again, the bleeding only a small amount now from what I can smell. I decide to take a shower then. The warm spray is familiar, and he wonders idly how Frank gets good water pressure in such a dump of an apartment. Simple pleasures come in strange places for sure.

I’m toweling myself off after finding a fresh towel perched on the counter when I get out. Frank must have left it for him because I knows it wasn’t there when I went in.

I smell eggs and bacon when I enter the living room now, well, smelt it strongly now that I’ve actually entered the kitchen area.

“Breakfast of champions,” I say as I take a seat on one of the island chairs.

The camaraderie is something he didn’t expect to come out of this ‘relationship’. It’s heavy ground, now, easing its way into a territory none of them want to testify just yet.

And so the day moves on in the same comfortability, not fully stepping into definitions or insinuations, just the contentment of this simple back and forth banter neither have been really able to have so openly. It’s strange and heady, what I have feeling, when he eats with Frank on his kitchen counter.

They go back to the bed, not to sleep or rest, finding that a hard temptation, but stay resilient to steel away to get their clothes ready, because Frank’s got duties, and I have to run away to my house because I have a limit on how long he’ll squatter at Frank’s place.

And so they part.

It’s awkward since they both leave at the same time, walking together in some strange domestic catwalk. It’s a standstill, the breaking away from their little respite now, into a world they need to go back to.

I makes the first move to leave, but Frank’s the first one to lean in. I kiss back with a smile.

The press of lips is a goodbye more than a welcome surprise.

I don’t think much of it, though, thinking it has more to do with them being at the doorway, of heading out and doing ‘things’ into the world they actually need to get back to. I smile at him again, when we both walk out through the door, each leaving in a different direction, because they really are in more ways, and leaves with a promise from both me and Frank, saying they’d meetup or something along those words.

Finding the way back to my apartment is a strange task because of the clothes I’m in. I never, or rarely ever, wear just a simple t-shirt and shorts out in the open morning. It’s too open. It also doesn’t help that I can feel the logo is one of a skull shirt, faded, yet still with enough paint on it that I can outline the details. 

And at the end of the hallway, where his apartment door is, Karen and Foggy are knocking on it while calling his name out.

“Foggy I found him,” Karen says with a relieved tone as she obviously has turned around to find him standing there. Her head cants to the side, perplexed at his outfit. I seem befuddled as to why they are here, feigning ignorance to her questioning stare. He’s not working on any cases with them because of his break. I’m pretty sure they’re all busy mulling over the extra workload, intentionally leaving him out so he doesn’t get ‘stressed’ and recover from injuries I don’t really have anymore. I have new ones. I’m thankful their covered up a bit now. The glasses and shirt enough to cover the worst.

“Oh, thank god, Matt. What _happened_ to your face?”

I grimace at Foggy’s tone. He’s mad. I guess it didn’t cover nearly as much as I had hoped.

“Boxing incident.”

“I’m never going to get a straight answer from you now?”

“What are you guys doing here?” I ask only to change the subject. They drop it because I’m not willing to say anymore, and they’re not going to press any further.  

“We’ve been figuring things out, while you’ve been gone, but we need to tell you about it now,” Foggy says in a sigh.

I notice they’ve also got their briefcases, and Karen only wears heels when she goes to work. They’re hear for the legal kind of help. While it has been calming, to be away from work, there is still a tug in my heart to help out people, so I’m glad they’re hear asking for mine.

They take a while to respond again. I assume they wished they had more time to explain, but I’ve forced them to confess right away when I entered the hallway.

Karen’s the first one to pipe up after the silence.

“We found something. Something big, Matt. There’s a connection to all our previous cases, we’ve been figuring them out, now they all seem to fit – I’ve got a friend who knows more about this, he led me to this conclusion – we think there’s a bigger player in all of this.”

Matt visibly feels white, his cheeks losing blood and his knuckles tightening. They gauge his reaction, noticing his tense shoulders and heavy set brows. Th, all his indications’ that he’s privy to where this conversation will eventually lead.

“Let’s not have this inside. Come on, both of you, in then.”

Matt knows they understand because of how terse they become, nodding along as their feet’s pause in the way only doubt and fear could cause.

Matt sighs again. He’s going to have to put out the good beer for what he can tell is going to already be a terrible evening.

They sit on the couch, suddenly becoming quiet because the slight reprieve has left her speechless with how to continue on her revelation.

Karen gulps as she puts her hands on her knees.  “I’ve been keeping things in the dark with you guys for some time. I told Foggy about it first, unwillingly, but I’m glad now, which is why I’m here.”

It’s a lost cause to think that they wanted help on a case work they needed to quickly go over with me. I sigh as I head over to the fridge to fetch the mentioned good beer in the same place I always put it. Foggy and Karen don’t even have to ask as they pick the bottle out of their hands.

I’m having a mood now.

And okay, yes, I have been too secluded sometimes. I thought I was protecting them from my damaged self, when it turns out they’re more than capable of understanding since they’ve been privy to this world more than he has. It’s stunning, how dangerous and terrible self-centeredness is. I thought I was keeping the darkness at bay, the noises and sounds, all of it kept locked in tight knit prayers and terse confessions.

But listening to Karen’s tone, Foggy’s daunting silence as she lets her talk, it all bodes well for a terrible omen. It’s like a storm, something that starts out like pitter patters of rain that soon starts to unleash typhoon winds and thundering lightning that will more than just deafen me. I’m wary now to continue, but still, you have to digress in the face of such courage and power they seem to be emanating now more than the panic and fear.  

“Okay, so you all know that I worked with Union Allied way back a couple years ago before the scandal broke out,” Karen speaks out in that same courage.

“The murder of Daniel Fisher?”

“Yes.” Matt and Foggy don’t miss how tense her shoulders get. “Well it turns out that since they couldn’t pin the murder on me on account of my full proof alibi, and the fact that I’ve now been taken a protected position at the firm, they’ve been keeping tabs on me, little things that make me question if that man drinking coffee near me has a gun or not or if the new neighbors are actually a couple or not.” At that thought, I feel my jaw set tight in a frown. It would just be like Karen to keep things to herself like that. She didn’t want to burden them with that. She worried too much for us. It reminds him of his own actions, but different because she’s been doing something about it, not forgetting them and compartmentalizing them away.

“It’s fine, Matt. I’ve been used to these guys trailing me for a while now. I’m a security risk to them. I’ve got an in on something of theirs, but they can’t take me out because that’ll raise too much suspicion. It’s a standoff now.”  

“But what do you have on them?”

“Pension embezzlement.”

“So they were laundering through your old construction company?”

“Yes. I’ve got a USB of all their records, but as long as I’m not putting it down for evidence, they’ll keep their end of this silent agreement we’ve had.”

I shakes my head now. It’s difficult taking it all in, how much they’re actually invested into this madness now. Was I really this blind to all the corruption? Had I really just decided to turn away all of this - this evil because he hadn’t been able to handle it? Hadn’t been thinking to try and work it out like they have. I've just been keeping these terrible thoughts in the corners of my mind because it wasn't worth to worry about them and do nothing. There’s a strange sense of shame that comes from realizing how long you’ve been a coward. It washes over him in waves. They speak over his self-groveling guiltiness, unknowing thankfully. 

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out, trying to piece, it only started making clear when I started looking over your case files, Matt.  I took copies – and no, don’t give me that look, I know what I did was a confidentiality break, but listen, he’s given me a lead on who actually was transacting this money.”

“And who is that?”

“Leland Owlsley.”

The name sounds familiar, something I’ve read in reports from my days in Columbia University. “The retired wall-street accountant?”

“That same one,” Karen says with a nod to his head.

Karen continues. “He’s a reputable man that takes considerable time to be with his family now. In a statement from a New York gazette, he stated he quit to be with family now. He’s got a son with cancer and a daughter with chrons’ disease. Their treatments are based all the way in Minnesota Mayo Clinic. It doesn’t make sense that he’d have business here since he’s cut ties with New York ever since. But no one questions it because he’s generating money, lots of it, with no considerable reason except that he keeps stocks for some companies here to pay off loans. One of them being Union Allied as well.”

I shake my head. It’s a dead lead if they can’t prove more than him just visiting. “Have you looked at his records, found it through legal means? Or is everything here just libel and illegal?”

“I’m glad you asked, law-boy,” she said with an obvious smirk. “I’ve also got another friend, one you’d love very much, with an aptitude for illegally hacking into secured information files and bank records, he found something.”

I visibly deflate. More illegality. Nothing they can get their hands on would be good for a defense or rebuttal. All of it is hearsay and corrupted.

Karen puffs out a laugh, “Don’t be like that. You’re just like Foggy, jumping to the legal standpoint first. What my friend found on it was Russian and Japanese file reports and transactions.”

I nod, understanding her point immediately, my mind racing back to old cases, remembering them better than last time to pin names. “The Russian and Yakuza cases we’ve dealt with from last month, Vladimir and Nobu.” They had a lead on them of course, but it all went downhill because nothing they threw at the judge would follow through. It didn’t take a genius to figure out the judge had been bought and the case went downhill there.

“I’m telling you this because we can use this to our advantage, not legally of course, but it’s big, Matt and Foggy, cause once we get a green light, these guys who’ve caused harm and pain to anyone will go to jail for what they’ve done.”

“And what green light is that?”

“I bet you he’s on the news right now. He’s got a knack for being a cover-up story though.”

“Another friend of yours?” Matt asks, because Karen sure keeps close tabs on these risqué people.

“Nope. Just someone who I think’s getting close to what I’ve been trying to commence.”

This time it’s Foggy who speaks up about the situation at hand.

“I’ve talked with the police, from time to time now, you know Shiela, from the precinct? Well, she’s been feeding me information from our so called ‘donut dates.’”

“You dated her?” I ask because Foggy can only get information from woman he’s dated. So Marci isn’t the only one. I roll my eyes.

“So beside the point, Matt. Listen, from what she’s said the police have been trying to keep him shut off from the news for a while, this guy Karen said is useful, they’ve been keeping reports out and having police accept and testify his help as their own, the whole police force thinks he’s both a menace and help to their cause.” I note on how he seems to believe now, how he thinks an outlaw can be of use to the law. I guess I’m too wary to accept it just yet.

Foggy stands up, his hands going for the TV remote and playing a basic cable news channel on, Foggy talks over the news anchors voice, “He’s apparently a force to be reckon with that has started brandishing himself more and more throughout the years." It's like a cue, the news report, how Foggy quiets to let it retell a breaking news story that happened yesterday. I don't listen to the details too much. I surmise it's about a gunman that was taken down with a bullet to his head before he could take anymore victims down. Foggy continues speaking once the story moves on about a local super store re-opening, "He’s been idle for a while, but the police know his style. It’s all gunning down bad guys with military precision, and leaving the innocent with barely a scratch in the blaze of glory and open fire. He’s good at what he does, but he’s still erratic and dangerous.”

Foggy still holds some semblance of pride though, like he’s hero worshipping this guy even though what he does is breaking the law. I have a strange sense that I’ve been slighted.

That’s also when I feel the inkling, nearly sparse thought in my mind.

_Frank._

It’s a thought that could barely be registered properly as one in the first place. It’s fleeting as it was probable. It’s not likely. But Frank did smell like gun oil when he came back. He always does, but this time it seemed fresh. I didn't think much of it, better to not let it bother me as much as it should. 

I shake my head in confusion, trying to keep the connections and fraying thoughts at bay. “Who is this person, Foggy?” I sound hopeful, like I’m reproaching the idea that is steadily coalescing into something I don’t really want to think about.

“Some cops are calling him a god send, others are calling him a vigilante, but some of those he’s saved are calling him the _Punisher_.”

_Punisher?_

“ _Punisher_?” I say aloud. It’s a fitting title for someone like him. It’s not him. It’s not.

“He’s the key, Matt, he’s the reason we can pin everything on the bad guys.”

“How?”

“This guy doesn’t follow the law, he’s a knight on the chest board, Matt. He’s a catalyst to this eventual case for _Wilson Fisk_ , his incarceration, and the _King Pin_ of Hell’s Kitchen is going to go down with his help,” Karen divulged. "I'm sorry for putting this all on you, both of you, but you took me in, and and now I need to make sure that we're _all_ safe." 

"That's not on just you, Karen, we're your friends, and friends sometimes have to help take down crime lord businessmen from taking over New York from time to time," Foggy says, his tone painfully relieving. He goes to look at me. 

I try to steel my features from the name drop, still in disbelief, from both of those names, from both the King Pin’s real name and the startling description of the man I’ve come to know. I hold tight the bottle, feeling the cool perspiration on my skin a nice welcome from the blazing fever under it. They’ve _known so much_ so long ago.

"We're lawyers, Karen, we always fight for justice."

Karen nods thankfully, like she didn't need that confirmation before, but now it seems to help. 

“But what makes you think he’d help, The Punisher, or whatever you want him to do?”

“We’re hopeful, really,” Foggy’s voice sounds frail.

“Do you guys even know his name, his actual one, not some title people are calling him by?”

Their quietness is more than enough of response.

“So you’re just going to take a whim on an unpredictable player in all of this…mess?” My voice sounds weak at best. I just need to know why they’re so sure of him.

Karen’s shoulders raise up, her chin as well, defiant and commanding in way that only tells she has something she needs to say.

“I trust him because he saved my life.”

 


	9. Don't Turn Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo yes this was very late....late af.  
> oh well it's long so i hope you forgive me.  
> unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own

 

 

“He saved your life -?” I bite quickly on my tongue. I would have said Frank’s name had I not.

Karen nods. “Yes.”

“When?”

“This is something I haven’t even told Foggy fully.” She gulps. “It was a month after Daniel’s death… they weren’t trying to kill him – they were trying to kill me instead. Daniel was just a victim to my finding about Union Allied.” Her tone seems sad, but with an undertone of anger and not regret I thought it would.

“So they tried again,” I asked her.

“Yes. It was really just an accident, really, how it all happened. I was just going to follow a lead by myself when hands grabbed from behind and I was put into a warehouse out by the harbor - It was stupid, yes, I know, stop looking at me like that Matt and Foggy,” she says chiding as well as being sorry. “I was put into a chair and forced to tell them where I kept my information hidden. They were planning to have tortured me, but –    ”

“It was you,” I say suddenly, the pieces connecting haphazardly that my thoughts had wandered away to speak.

“It was me?” Karen as inquisitively, her lip curled into confusion.

I let my confused response die out in my throat.

_She was the reason Frank broke free._

I feel thankful to her. Not thankful that he saved Frank specifically. It’s not worth figuring out what I mean exactly. I’m just thankful regardless.

“Continue, please,” I say when she beckons for me to explain. “It’s nothing. Nothing to concern about.” I let the _‘not yet’_ be spoken in my features.

“There was someone they called the Punisher in their group. They said he was one of their lackeys that would get the information out of me, but he turned around and started shooting at the people around us. He saved me that night. So you have to believe me that we should trust him. He’s not exactly the most upstanding of citizen we could have on our side, but he’s all we got going.”

There’s more trust to her words than she lets on.

I shake my head, not out of disagreement, just needing to clear my head. “Okay, so it’s not if _we_ can trust this guy now. It’s how we’ll execute our plan. I didn’t even know about Fisk until last night, but you guys surely must have known about him longer.”

Both of them purse their lips like they’re keeping a secret tightlipped. It must have been longer than I thought. God I really have been blind to everything.

“Wait, when did you figure out about Fisk? We were sure we were the only ones with a lead on who he was.”

“Under circumstances similar to yours, I’ve become quite acquainted with who he is.” I make sure to vaguely look in the direction of where Karen stands. She seems a bit confused, but the idea must be forming in her head about what I mean because her shoulders straighten just a fraction of a bit more.

I take a sip of beer, letting the cool liquid cure my parched throat now. “Fisk is a frightening man and I’ve barely even met him properly.”

“But I’ve met him. I know who he is. I’m a threat to him because of how close I am to getting him.”

Karen’s shoulders roll around, like she’s stretching, but it’s more than that. She’s uncomfortable.

“When did you meet him? Were you trying to follow a lead?”

She sighs as she takes a long sip of a beer. She’s quiet for a while.

“Vanessa Marianna, she’s the reason I know who the real Wilson Fisk is. Vanessa Marianna was a friend of mine and Wilson Fisk’s wife. She- she came to me one night, way before Daniel died, wanting to tell me about what her husband did to her family.”

I stay silent, vigilant to let her talk because if I do I don’t think she’d continue.

“She’s accepted that Fisk was a criminal. Marianna was used to violence in her life, of being surrounded by bad and good people who made terrible choices. Her family was part of an opposing mafia that Fisk was clashing with. It’s how they met. It was very Romeo and Juliet she had told me,” her laugh is a bit cold than sentimental like she thought it was. “But she thought Fisk was different, thought he was one of the good guys. She still believes that even after what she told me. God I don’t even know why she told me about it. I think she just needed to tell someone or she’d go crazy living with that man.”

Karen’s shaking now.

“Her family was making a drug deal with one of Fisk’s loyal suppliers, he didn’t like that, so to send a message to the family he had Marianna’s father and brothers tied to crosses while being shot at. She…she described it like she saw it herself. Like she was right there in that room when it happened.”

“Karen…” Foggy soothed out, like he was trying to calm a scared animal. It must have been too much for him to let her continue. I seem a bit shaken as well. I guess I wasn’t prepared to know more of what Fisk was really capable of.

“So we have to stop him. Marianna told me this long ago, I never really thought much about it, but she knew I needed to know about it when the time came around. She had to tell me about it because I was going to be connected with it. It’s all really clear now. I thought she just wanted me to console with her. I didn’t think much of what she said except that I was always going to be there for her. It wouldn’t have lasted, our friendship, she knew it was strained, and I knew that we wouldn’t stay in contact long once she told me about it. I was going to be a liability if I was too close to her.”

“So you had a falling out? But how did that lead you to Union Allied? How did you find the embezzlement files?”

“The last time I knew Vanessa was still even alive was that I learned that she pulled strings to get me hired into Union Allied. I didn’t expect that I would be hired right away by a construction company like them. They said I was recommended by a senior associate who I didn’t even know.

“So she assumed you’d find it?” I seem skeptical if only because I don’t know exactly who or how Vanessa Marianna plays into her finding about the embezzlement.

“She wanted me there because she knew I’d find what they were doing. Vanessa knows I can get to Fisk because she can’t herself.  She’s told me time and time again that I had a knack for finding danger and coming out fine.”

“Urich’s been saying the same thing to me as well. He says that you seek it out because you know what’s right,” Foggy says, a bit like he’s reminiscing.

“Ben Urich? The journalist? Foggy and Urich must have been working for a while then, too. Ben Urich was a renowned journalist for taking down big crime organizations. He was retired. Well he was working more as a columnist instead of investigating criminal activity now. If any ally was to help Karen and Foggy, then I would assume that a veteran like him would have joined.   

“He’s the friend we’ve been working with. We’ve been trying exactly how to figure out what we’re planning to do to get Fisk to jail. Vanessa pushed us into the right direction, but the rest is up to us it seems.”

I don’t understand why Vanessa would be helping them, why she’d rather make Karen do it instead of herself. “But why go through all this trouble? Why not just go to the police and go under witness protection?”

“Because she still loves him. She loves him too much to send him away. So we have to do it _ourselves_ if we want him gone. I think she’d be okay if we incarcerate him, if we send him to jail, if we get him to surrender once and for all. It won’t technically be like she did it herself. She was never strong enough to do it anyways.”

“But we need to get him into the spotlight first before we can start anything. We need the public to know about him first,” I say as I finish off one beer bottle.

“Urich and I have been trying to figure out exactly _that_ in a legal way of course.”

“I told you that we’d just need him to make a mistake, Foggy. Force him to take drastic measures if we send a message that we know more about his past.”

“More?” I blanche at her words. “Are you saying he’s done worst?” 

Karen nods absently as she brings her thumb to her mouth, anxiously biting it. “We’ve been trying to search up more dirt, more of his past because it’s obvious that it wasn’t an isolate incident with Marianna, all the while being discreet as well. Urich has been protecting me so I won’t get caught like last time so don’t be worried.

“What else could he have done?”

“We’ve never found anything with actual sustenance to at least push him into the stage first, nothing that can’t be disproved. Even if we have something, most of it is all hearsay from the witness if we try to put any of his violent past into play or any of his psychiatric documents.”

 _So they have a witness willing to speak about Fisk, a subordinate that’s probably tired of working for him. But it’s unreliable though because it’s inadmissible to the court._ “What was the statement from the witness?” I ask because I need to know.

Karen sighs as she nods again, her hands clasping her knees as she tries to speak up again. Her voice is quiet, “We – we found out that Fisk killed his father. He bludgeoned his dad to death at the age of 10.”

I gulp at that information. I’m almost too afraid to ask my next question. Almost.

“Who was the witness?”

“His mother,” Karen replies just as quickly, like the words burn her to say.

My jaw tightens. I feel like taking another sip of beer, but I’ve been empty for a while now. Foggy hands me a new bottle.

“Her mother was hysterical, we didn’t even mean to talk about Fisk’s past right away, but it was like she was reliving the moment it had happened. After that she stopped talking, went into shock. She kept repeating the words: ‘he did it for me.’”

I stay quiet for a while. It’s a lot to take in. This portrait of who Wilson Fisk keeps getting bloodier the more I try to learn about him.

“And nothing you heard could be used in court without being hearsay or tampered now. It’s a violation as well as unreliable information if they can say she’s mentally unstable now.”

“Urich said it was bad idea to go to the geriatric home. But at least we know more now because of it.”

“But you don’t think that Fisk wouldn’t know you came there? It would raise suspicion, especially if he’s the one paying for her care at the hospice.”

Karen’s jaw tightens, one part more taught than the other in a way that shows me she’s biting her lip. “He’s sent his message. I’ve got a week to hand him all my evidence or else he’d personally shut us down.”

“What do you mean shut us down?”

Karen’s hands shake, but the rest of her stands taught, strong and determined in an admiral way. “Fisk has a lot of the firm already blackmailed into accepting his offer to make his own associates senior partners. He’s met them in person to convince them if they don’t agree.”

“But wouldn’t it be strange if you got fired? Or if we all got fired?” I try not to feel a bit unhinged from hearing we’d have about a week to still be practicing lawyers.

“Not if Fisk is smart enough to plan for that, which he is of course. Fisk is already wary to have another scandal go. If we all randomly got fired, he’d get everyone on his hackles for having us get the boot unfairly like that.” Karen paces around the room, her hands pulling her hair like she’s thought this through a thousand times with the same conclusion. “It’s also not easy to forget my past history with them.”

“We’re familiar.”

“Fisk doesn’t want that to happen again. He’ll make sure the… kill happens even if he has to do it himself.” She takes a longer pause this time, probably eyeing how I take it. I hadn’t really thought this ahead, hadn’t considered that even before this I could have been a target to Fisk for incapacitating and unwillingly claiming one of his men. Karen’s help is immense that I feel calm enough not to freak or go white again. She seems to find something because she continues.

“We’re protected because of the firm and bad luck on their part. The one time is easy enough for the blame to be shifted as a suicide anyways for the police to not really look into it. Twice though? That’s pushing it, especially with the same person who was convicted being the victim them self.”

I nod with her. She’s thought it out well. “We can’t really work with that angle without putting ourselves in danger, I get it. I don’t think it’s wise to think we’d survive an attack if we let him do it,” I advise while nursing my new drink. The alcohol makes it easier to not feel too tense. “But if that happened, hypothetically of course, wouldn’t we get the public generating a lot of media attention, enough to raise suspicion” 

“Let’s not go the martyr path, Matt,” Foggy says a bit exasperated. “We have to do something in the next couple of days to make sure that were not a bunch of sitting ducks. Let’s make sure of it.”

Karen shakes her head, her hair shuffling in a sideway direction. “It won’t go how you think, Matt. All of that won’t matter if we don’t have the public to care for us. We’re basically nobodies that just got booted out if they see us as halfwits that were bad or corrupt at their job, especially if they can make everyone say ridiculous statements about us to prove it. We won’t look good in the public if our names are slandered. We’re not a good enough story if we don’t have the firms bonafide validation under our very names.”

“We’d just be a quick post it note on the obituary pages. No big front page news like we all should be. Okay, yeah, that sounds totally messed up. Let’s really not go there.”

The silent ‘we will not’ hangs in the air between all of us.

“Look, Fisk’s already risked a lot by implanting people in our firm. He’s definitely wasted a lot of money and street credibility to have people on board with his plan. This means he’s desperate enough that if we get one more incident to happen he just might expose himself for damage control.”

“He’d risk exposing himself like that?” Foggy pipes in. For once he’s being uncharacteristically pensive with Karen’s ideas. He’s usually more of a throw an idea around person until it starts to gain momentum that it reaches a peak of realization. He must be thinking this thoroughly if he isn’t inputting more of his charismatic ideas into it.

“That tells us that he’s afraid we might get him.”

“I’m assuming you want the Punisher to do something then?”

Karen stands up now, her body moving towards the window. She seems to be staring at the direction of the sign. I can hear the silent electrical buzz of it through the mirror, where I notice that it’s accompanied by the small pitter patter of rain. It’s a strange mix of sound, something I haven’t clearly had the propensity to hear now.

“We need to find a way to contact the damn guy first,” Karen says, breaking me away from my ebbing thoughts. “He’s elusive as he is dangerous. That’s the first plan in our objective, to get the Punisher on our side, which he won’t deny, of course.”

“He can’t,” I say, agreeing with her conviction. She doesn’t seem to doubt that Frank will help them. I don’t either. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that other stuff. Frank’s too invested in this that he’d agree in a heartbeat anyways.

The beer sits uneasily in the pit of my stomach. I lightly grind my teeth, suppressing the answer to her problem in my throat. It could easily escape with how loose the alcohol makes me. I’m glad I’m quiet because Foggy talks over me that I let the answer die out.

“We can fully plan for that tomorrow. I think we’ve given Matt a lot to think about right now, too much was said all at once today. We can make plans to rendezvous again for our next course of action once we’ve thought of ideas or something.”

I want to argue that we’ve got limited time already if what Karen says is true, we shouldn’t waste any more time. But it dies out the same way as my previous statements. I am tired, that much is true. And I guess nothing we’d have so far would be helpful, since I already have an answer to their first problem, but I’m not willingly sharing it yet.

I need to go over it with Frank first. As much as I trust Frank, he’s still a stranger with a tendency to be a wildcard it seems, just the lawyer part of him that seems to be wary only though. I trust myself with the full knowledge he’d help. 

That night, once they Karen and Foggy leave with a quick promise to stay safe and keep contact, I stay awake in my bed. It feels a bit like déjà vu. Similar to that same as always thrumming need to forget and wash away what I’ve learned.

It doesn’t take me long before I begin contemplating wearing civilian clothing or the masked outfit. In the end I chose the mask. It’s easier to hide and sleeker to run around in.

The open air is chilling on my spine, how the rain had stop but moisture still clings to my skin in misty drops. It’s beginning to get colder as the seasons progress, moving towards an early chill for the end of summer. I hide in the alleyways firstly, before finding that the fire escapes that head to the roof are a much easier option to scout for smells and sounds of Franks.

I make quick work in finding his apartment again, like it’s conditioned in me to smell and sense it out, finding the direction to his house without much worry or confusion.

I stand a street away from Frank’s place, letting myself listen to his heartbeat or any other indication that he’s home.

Nothing. I just hear the tiny thump that’s probably just Max. It’s likely that Frank is out doing god knows what, which I hoped wouldn’t be the case. It makes this much harder now.

Finding no other place to start but up, I scale up the building fire escape with unfounded confidence again. It’s not that I didn’t think I was capable of moving this way, there was just no reason for it as of now. It’s a bit awkward, trying to maneuver in such a manner still. I nearly lose grip on the handle one time.

Finding myself on the roof of Frank’s building is a moot event. It’s not much except for gravel and bird poop. There’s a corner where a tarp is placed over the ground, where it smells like gun oil and the faint smells of ammonium and trinitrotoluene, explosives, all of it hidden in wooden crates. Of course Frank would have that stored somewhere like his rooftop of all places. 

I pull my senses away from the obnoxious sent and focus my scope to the rest of the city.

Too much sensory input. Loud noises of baby’s waking up and crying, bands playing late, the blast of cars honking from an accident, the smell of smog and the dampness caused by the rain to muddle everything to nothing.

I give up after half an hour of feeling useless. It’s too hard reaching out with my senses in these conditions. I have half the thought to just wait it out like last time with Frank. I feel the wound on my shoulder again, feel the stitching on them. The prickliness of the sutures seems comforting.

This time when I walk into Frank’s apartment I find a lump under his welcome mat door. I lift it and extract what is a key from under it. It’s sensible of Frank at the very least.

Sure enough when I fit the key into the lock it opens with a quick turn of my wrist. I enter for the first time in Frank’s apartment without being illicit. I feel like this will be the best Frank can come up with a ‘welcome home’ vibe to it.

The dog in the corner jumps when I enter the room again. Its head tilting to the side, but then all the same rushing to me, forgoing cautionary curiosity to lick at my outstretched hand.

“Hello to you too, Max,” I say petting the dog carefully on its head.

He whines at me, like expectant of something. I guess last time I wasn’t able to get him a treat. Immediately I try to remedy that. I find the kibble in the same spot it was. It’s nearly half empty now. I pour Max another cup and refill his water because it seems he’s just a bit hungry for tonight from what I can tell.

The dog has a strange scent. Not unlike other dogs, just more unique because it’s scent mingles well with Franks. Gun oil and smoke tinge its fur and skin in the smallest, yet penetrating ways. It’s like the dogs been in a few wars. I pull back away, promptly feeling for its collar. There’s a dog tag at the end of it. An official military dog tag on him. _2007 Medal of Gallantry and We Also Serve_ is inscribed on it.

“You’re a war dog, Max?” The dog barks, like it’s responding to him in an unexplainable way. “Well, I guess now you and Frank share more in common than me now.”

I stray away from the dog again, finding myself trapped in a room I’ve come to be strangely familiar with. I still feel too on edge to sit down and rest like last time. I can’t sit back and wait. I try to rummage around the room, trying and failing to find anything that could pin-point me to Frank’s whereabouts.

The smell of cut wood is a new scent I find myself going towards. It’s fresh and apparently new. I go to the wooden table where it emanates and find a knife pinned on it, where, at the end of it seems to hold a picture of some sort. I take it off and feel for any imprints that ink could tell me.

It’s too smooth. Nothing decipherable except for the sleek feel of the ink. But there’s a words at the bottom of the picture, of freshly written marker ink on it I can read.

_Dogs Of Hell._

I sigh to myself as I make my way towards the door, the destination already mapped out in my head from previous cases I had worked on that dealt with this particular gang for a custody agreement gone wrong.

The place was still the seedy bar that teemed with scents of motor oil, tobacco smoke, and spiked leather. It was easy to find because of how concentrated the scents all were. This was the central ground for all Dogs Of Hell members. I didn’t feel particularly excited to enter the place, but gladly I was able to pick up on an unfamiliar scent around the place.

It was on the adjacent building across the street. I had a hunch the scent would trail towards the roof.

I climb the railing to the roof with my new found maneuvering, trying with as much restraint to keep my motions quiet. The click of a trained gun at my face when I try to pull upwards to the roof means I failed.

“It’s good to see old habits die hard for you, Frank,” I say as the barrel of his gun touches my forehead. The metal still strikingly cool from the ski masks protection. 

“So far that’s happened two times, Red, ain’t no habit if you ask me, you’re just shit with luck like always.”  

“Does shit luck includes almost always looking into the barrel of your gun?”

“Like you could see it,” Frank chuckles. I roll my eyes.

Thankful that he’s at least dropped his gun down, he brings a hand up to pull me all the way through with ease, and then he moves to perch on what I think is a wooden box near the end of the roof ledge on the west side. I follow a few feet behind him, keeping my distance to look down on him.

Frank sighs a bit at me, like he’s put upon by me, his hands finding work with mantling together a rifle that I try not to seem wary about. “So what brings you here now, out with it, I’m not in the mood for trivial bullshit.”

“What are you doing here, Frank?”

“That a question you really want an answer to?”

“I’m serious.”

“Course you are, always gotta bring it down to a level.”

“Why are you doing this?” I say, restating my next statement.

Frank stays silent for a while, his hands reaching for a canister of some sorts. He brings it to his mouth and gulps down.

“I’m the one that threw the bomb, at the pizza place,” Frank says suddenly.

“What are you talking about?” I say, tone starting out confused but slowly disbelieving, “They said it was the third guy who brought the bomb in.”

“He did. I just caught the grenade and threw it in the kitchen when we started fighting, I was forced to kick him last minute into the kitchen before diving out in the dining room.”

I shake my head, my hands crossing themselves suddenly. “Why are you telling me this?

“I’m telling you this, Red, because I’m not a bad guy, but I don’t think that I’m doing the good you think I should be, I just do what needed to be done. What I do is what I do.”

It’s my turn to stay quiet.

“Is it hard for you to do?”

“Gotta be more specific, Red,” his tone is light, like it’s more teasing than serious.

My jaw sets, the question not something I wanted to directly ask for. “Is it hard to kill someone? Do you even regret it?”

“That’s too much regret to think about. I’d go crazy if I held it in like that. No one is capable of that kind of masochism. You either forget it or you let it consume you.”

“But you _don’t_ have to kill them though.”

“You gonna debate ethics with me all night? Because if so, I got shit to do tonight and I ain’t in the mood to hear any of your choir boy bull shit.”

“Is that much to ask?” I say finding myself sitting next to Frank, the hard wood just as unmovable as his opinions.

“Thought you’d know that by now. I’m sure you’ve figured _something_ out at the very least.”

I nod, more dejected than accepting. “I know more of who you are now, from all the past cases I’ve worked with, how I didn’t really piece it until today. Then with the warehouse, with what Cavallo revealed to me, it made it realer, more like this thing wasn’t just words on paper now.”

“Took you long enough.”

“When you become a lawyer, they say the facts are the most telling of any case. No emotions and nothing, just let the facts state what is being said. That’s how you win a case with . Cavallo controlled you to do most of it, you weren’t _willing_ , I know for a fact that there’s more to you than you let on as some killer.”

“Can the same could be said to you? It’s pretty rich that a lawyer with an oath can easily throw a punch to a bunch of members of a criminal organization. Besides, I’ve done more from back then, without Cavallo’s influence.”

I crease by brow a bit. Frank tenses now, he drops the gun when he’s finally clicking a magazine into the gun compartment, and it’s a frightening sound.  

Frank sighs again, his hands scratching the back of his head, like he’s trying his best to be sheepish. “We had to beat around the bush cause you were injured and tired last time we met. But I was there. I can pretty much surmise what happened that night, figured it out from a quick scope when you were at the warehouse, it wasn’t hard.”

“You were there?” I ask, confused.

“Barely. Just saw enough from my scope like I said. Knew enough that you were there, but didn’t know if you were gonna live or not.”

I tighten my grip on both my arms. “And you didn’t think to help?”

Frank balks with a wry sound. “High praise that you’d think I’d be stupid to do something like you did.”

“So, what? You were keeping watch of me instead? I accuse, a bit shocked.  

I feel air displace around him. “Like you would want my type _help_ , Red. You surprised me, though, couldn’t believe a smart man like you would walk in like that. Didn’t pick you up as careless.”

I shrug a bit, helpless and a little bit more than just confused now, more befuddled. I can’t say I did it for him. I barely know this guy. It doesn’t matter.

“Guess you don’t know me that well,” I say in an insistent tone as I try for a nonchalant shrug. It matters to me more than it should. My motives are screwed with someone like Frank in my life. Nothing makes sense but to needlessly figure out this mess.

He shrugs too, resigned and calm. “Guess so,” he sighs, “Just when I think I have you figured out, you surprise me with new shit to think about. I’m usually good at reading people right away.”

“Have you been given that much? To think about me? To know me?”

Frank leans close, his tone amusing with the curve of his vowels, like he’s smirking. “You’ve made progress more than others, to get to know me at the very most. The least I could do was return the favour.”

“I don’t know much about you, Frank.” I don’t push away from his leaning. I breathe in his scent, unconsciously of course.

“I’m pretty certain you know about my military background, Red, and how you knew where Cavallo was from my memos. I’m not an idiot to not know when someone’s been feeding my dog.”

I grin back at him, “He was hungry.” Frank’s shoulders and hands relax, reminiscing to some memory I’m not privy to. I lean away from his now, moving myself to focus on the other sounds around me. The city’s unusually quiet now. Frank takes in my silence, leans back against the ledge walls and breathes out, all tiring and placating with how it eases him.

“I know you more than you think about you, about who you are, just little things. I knew it back when we first actually met. We seem to be in the habit of knowing more than we should.”

“So you took interest in me?”

“More like you were there at the right time and place kind of thing. I was kind of wary to be around you, a goddamn lawyer who’s got a bona fide history for fighting the good fight while working with a corrupted firm. Then me you look at me? I’m no saint like you.”

“It wasn’t always like that. It was easier when we started out small.”

“But it wasn’t supportable was it? You all crashed and decided that it was safer to work with that law firm?”

“It was selfish,” I suggest with the purse of my lips. “But we couldn’t help people if we didn’t have the money to stay afloat. So we had to. It was this or doing nothing.”

“I don’t think it’s selfish when you had to choose between the lesser of two evils. You’re good, too good for that place, Red, though.”

“I’m no saint, Frank, I’ve hurt people recently and I’ve done a lot of omitting in my life.”

“Just to be clear, this ‘thing’ that I’ve made _realer_ is in fact the _real world_ , something that you’ve just been hiding so long that you forgot. It’s cowardly, but at least you’re trying to atone for it by doing something of it.”

“I’m no better than you, Frank, never made that clear I guess. You’ve taken action, it might be askew if you ask me, but it’s more than what I’ve done, more than what I’ve been thinking of doing for a while.”

He doesn’t answer, just looks up, his breath facing the sky, then he reaches down to grab the canister for another drink. From the second time he’s sipped it, I can smell the subtle scent of whiskey inside the thermos.  

“It was kind of strange how it all went, how you found me, how I wanted to know you because you’re something different and the same as me, how you knows things about me even when you’re so blind. It’s scary as it is effortless to want you and know you. So yes, you interest me, to put it lightly. You’re a bunch of contradictions I’m figuring out because I need to.”

“I’ve got a limit, Frank, I’m no contradiction,” I say quietly, small worded because of his big words.

But being cross examined again is strangely familiar with Frank now that rebuttals feel easy enough to say. It’s a resilient application, of adapting it with how I am in tribunals and courtrooms, where you have to be sharp and on your toes.

“Beating up an entire squad of armed men is your limit? Might’ve been easier if you could just permanently knock em down, make it easier than that all for one brawl.”

I sigh as I tilt my head away from Frank, suddenly unwilling to face him when I speak. “I’ve never thought I was capable of doing it. I _knew_ I could, but that’s not an uncommon thought. Those thoughts aren’t real, they’re just fraying and meaningless. I have to keep all that negative stuff at bay, been doing that pretty well for a while, because that _doesn’t_ make who you are as a person, they’re nothing to my true self is what I mean. I’ve just never thought this much about it, like debating in my head, because it comes naturally that I never doubt, that there’s a conviction in me to never do it.”

“But you’re trained to fight, someone taught you it more than just self-defense I’m certain of that.”

“I’m just some guy, Frank, nothing about me is more than my titles.”

“You’re not just blind, too, you know.”

The memory is like a flicker, just a spark that ends, enough to make me remember again nonetheless, those same words said back then. “I was told I was more than what I was made out to be. I was given this ability to do something.”

“Not really where I was going with that. I’m not one to spout crap like that Hero-Quest bullshit,” Frank pipes in with a half chuckle.

I remember feeling the same way too, in the beginning when I was still young and training with Stick.

But some innateness in me knew there was more to it. It wasn’t bullshit. There was more to this than anything. I’ve stayed dormant, though, kept all of this deep within my minds from all the other memories because this life was maddening as it was fascinating. It was different young, you could work with the madness, but that was when you could always be preoccupied with something back then, to train your mind to focus on other menial tasks and goals. But that won’t last long. It wasn’t a solution to this problem, by keeping it away.

“There’s more to it, though – ”

“ – You’re just you, Matt. Everyone is their own person, and were all just bumping into each other creating choices that ripple into reality. In this particular case, we’re caught in something bigger now because of our choices. It’s not fate or some bigger, grander scheme from the universe. It’s our shitty lucky lives, that’s _it_.”

It’s despondent, how he thinks. Typically cynical and baseless, like any soldier who seen so much of the terrors of war.

But Frank is right. He’s becoming this person who gets rid of all these walls, to open things that I’m not yet willing to accept right now or ever.

But he does, with so much conviction it’s hard not to be awed by it.

I’m not sure how much of it has been a choice along the way, but I feel like I don’t have any say in how this goes anymore, how were going to be forced to do it. No taking back what has already started. And it’s true, I’ve made himself a target by acting so rashly. Wilson Fisk must know about me by now, not by name yet, but surely through my actions now. Actions like unknowingly defying him, effectively ridding one of his subordinates. It must send a message clearer than Karen’s own goal of achieving his own uprising.

He’s also made targets and Foggy and Karen, of all three of us, even more so because we’re all liable to her plans to overthrow someone like him.

“When you held me at gunpoint, you were scared of me, but you were never going to shoot, were you?”

It feels like forever, the response, but it comes in a tired ‘ _no_ ’.

“You were a liability for sure,” Frank admits, elaborating on his terse answer. “I didn’t know for sure if you were capable of being controlled, if you were a sleeper agent, if you were someone who was working with him. It’s concerning how good you were, at everything really, how controlled and destructive you could be, like a grenade ready to kill everyone around you. It became clear when we talked again at the hospital that you were nothing like that... but I only knew for sure because of tonight, absolutely now, about how naïve you really were about Hell’s Kitchen business, how blind you really are to the dark secrets it holds. You were innocent to it all back then. I like that as much as I hate it.”

My jaw sets, locked in place from either saying a scathing response or a hurried question about what he means.

“Thanks for being so considerate with my life and naiveté.” Scathing response.

“I knew because you cared about me, Matt.” “

I gulp, looking up at his face as he begins leaning closer to me.

“You care, care about someone like me, about some stranger who you’ve barely even known that long, genuinely, too. So goddamn innocent." It's meant to be a compliment, but I don't take it as one. 

I keep my stare at him, fighting back the urge to look away. I need to look at him, he needs to see how my face looks when I say it.

“I don’t _care_ for you.” It’s so weak, the words, brittle and careless. "I thought I was doing the right thing when I did it." 

“Lying is a sin, Red, and you know it," his voice even more biting and acerbic. 

I break my stare, moving my head to anywhere but where Frank is so I don’t look at him. It doesn’t work, because I never see with my eyes, never needed to, but it’s a habit I’ve always kept, ingrained in me from a young age to look away when embarrassed.

“Thanks,” is all Frank says.

“What for?” The change in Frank’s tone is like whiplash, fast and unexpected.

“For caring, you know, getting rid of the bad guys when I couldn’t. I know you didn’t mean to kill him, of course, it was his choice, but you did help me in the end,” Frank hurriedly explains.

The blush should be hidden in my neck and cheeks should not be obvious to someone like Frank, but still I hope they aren’t there. “I didn’t do this for you.” I don’t know why I need to lie. It’s seems like it’s already out in the open, just waiting for me to take it. I’m just scared now.

“Thanks anyways. I owe you one now.”

I slump a bit, almost like he said that on cue for me. “Then I’m thankful for that because we do need your help, Frank.”

I know Frank’s grin is wry. “Christ that was a quick respite from being indebted - you ever think of taking a break with that kind of eagerness?”

I grin back, genuine it seems, and trying to be calm when I speak, “I’ll take a break when all of this is over, Frank.” I then promptly explain our unfortunate plight. It’ll be a few weeks from now until either one of us will ever take a break once we fully plan this takedown on Fisk. I hope we’re ready for it.


	10. Desert This Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> soooo sorry this took so long...but like what is a plot  
> and when will it thicken???   
> soon. hopefully.

 

Getting Frank to go along with their plan was easier said than done. It really didn’t take much convincing after all once I had basically told him that we’d be taking down Fisk.

It also seemed that that was the only part of the idea he was focused on.

The idea, or really, the hypothetical concept it was, was something that Frank found ludicrous. It may have been his only lead to stopping the man who was responsible for controlling him. But to him it was ludicrous.

I mean, to an extent we were all going to take down a crime lord businessman in what seemed like barely a week from its revelation. That in itself was all ludicrous and full of bad vibes.

Albeit, that was more on me. I haven’t exactly been the greatest at understanding my surroundings all that well. Foggy and Karen have been more active and doing more work than he has. It shouldn’t sting that much that Foggy knew about this whole fiasco than he did. It shouldn’t be a competition in that sense, he knows that Karen had her reasons. The sting of betrayal is still there nonetheless.

Speaking of them, it was even easier to tell Foggy and Karen that Frank Castle was already found and willing to help them.

Karen was ecstatic about it all, taking it in her usual care free stride. She was collected and calm, but she seemed to have a buzz in her that hadn’t been there for some time, like knowing that the Punisher—I really disliked that name—was already an ally, was more than enough to rid her doubts about her plan. It was fool proof. She had her judgement day set out for Wilson Fisk. It was a foreboding soon enough, and that was a day she’d be reckoning to happen since Vanessa forced her to play her hand in this. 

Foggy was faint of heart though. I could tell with the way his heart beat faster from just seeing the man, the same man who they’d need for their plan to take down Wilson Fisk, who he hero-worshipped in all the wrong ways. Though, to be fair, I couldn’t differentiate if it came from either fear or excited awe.

The attention didn’t do well for Frank’s ego. It seemed to inflate a bit from their constant preening and shocking looks that Karen and Foggy gave him like he wasn’t real.

I didn’t really get it all. Frank was just Frank. He was just a person.

Albeit he was a much more dangerous person than anyone he’d ever met.

“This plan is ridiculous.”

“It’s the only one they got, Frank. I don’t think it’s that bad. They did their research, they found a part of his life they can exploit to the public, and once that happens we can lure him towards a stakeout.”

“Yeah, but you think a man who’s kept his secret identity for so long would just make himself open like that?”

“I thought that too… but Karen’s got a confidant who gave her this idea. She has a feeling that if we bring up his past sins that’ll make him personally seek out the public eye.”

“This is all up to chance, Red. I thought the plan was going to involve…”

My breathe hitches a bit, like a breathy chuckle. “A fight? A brawl? A one on one confrontation?” I drawl sarcastically. “I don’t know about you Frank, but that doesn’t’ always have to be the answer.”

“I know that. Red…it’s just, I thought it would be something less anti-climactic. We’re all leaving a lot to chance and probability on how he’d act. Nothing is certain.”

“Well we certainly can’t act without putting ourselves in danger, that’s what he wants most of all. If what Karen says is true, he wants us out in the open causing havoc first. Wants us to make bigger targets of ourselves.” I shake my head, vehement on that idea. “I don’t want to do anything that would let Foggy and Karen paint bigger targets on them.” I let my hands rest on Frank’s nape, feeling the short cropped hair bristle against my fingertips. It’s a strange sensation that I’ve found myself liking more and more as I spend time with Frank.

“Why are you acting so protective of people who got this under control then? You don’t think your friends are capable of handling themselves?”

I shake my head, biting my lips in consternation. “I know they can. They got this far…but it’s just, I don’t feel at ease knowing they’re out their risking their careers, their futures, their lives even—all of it to send this guy away.”

“A dangerous criminal. They’re putting away a dangerous criminal. That’s noble. You shouldn’t act like they need to be locked up and hidden if they themselves put so much effort into stopping him.”

I lick my bottom lip, canting my head up in a moot effort to look at Frank.  “I know what they’re doing is noble. They’ve done more without me. Heck, I’m pretty sure all I did was introduce you to this plan in the first place…but.”

“But nothing,” Frank reprimands as he pulls Matt closer so that Matt’s face is on his chest. “Just because they can’t fight with their own bare hands, or have super senses doesn’t mean they won’t know how to defend themselves when they need to. Karen already seems like she’s smart and tough to deal with it, hell I mean she handled being kidnapped pretty well without my help for a good while.”

“She said you saved her.”

Frank’s face makes a frown, the countenance shift is something Matt can sense with how close they are. “Nah, she helped me first by distracting the guys with her quick wit. Called her captors out for being dumbasses, confused them all and gave me enough time to break free from control…hell, she even knocked a gun out with her heel. You really did think she’d be helpless, do nothing while being captured? I don’t think you’d ever assume that of her what with that scandal breaking out with her and that other guy.  

“No. I didn’t think she’d do nothing,” I say as I smile and shake my head, nuzzling myself closer to the heat of his neck.

This is so strange I think to myself as I breathe in his scent. How has this person invaded himself so deeply inside my personal life now?

Is Frank really just some one? He’s not just a person. He’s been an enigma from the start that I never got quite around to figure out, like some kind of malaise that settles on my mind like a headache or migraine. Frank Castle is someone I met just a few days ago, but I’m finding it harder and harder to think that we just met in so little time.

No one has broken into my defenses as fast as he did. He was supposed to be just someone who could help ease the desperate need to forget.

But now he’s the reason I want to remember. I want to force myself to play a part in this mess, to not idle around anymore and forget about how terrible the world is. I can’t turn a blind eye any more than I normally would. It’s been too long, too degrading, too much of everything to be like that. He’s forced me to take action for the first time in a while.

And even knowing that I still don’t know where Frank stands in my life.

 “Stop thinking so much right now,” Frank says as he cuffs my head, breaking away my thoughts with his gruff voice. “We rest and wait for the news blow up for tomorrow.”

I drum my fingers on his skin in attempt to ease myself with tediousness, but still finding it hard to find the pull of sleep tempting just yet. “Until we start working our way towards our next plan.”  

Frank makes a humming noise. “That plan I like very much.” 

“Of course you would,” I say as I pinch his skin with the fingers I was drumming on his chest. “Always the one to go gun blazing first.”

“Not like I’m the only one.”

“Touché,” I say as a slap his skin to scold him. He exhales from the impact, chuckles as he roughly grabs my nape and shoulder, and drags me on top of him.

“Stop being so nitpicky in bed. You said so yourself that Karen and Foggy would handle the press release with Ulrich and all we’d need to do is turn on the T.V tomorrow for the scandal outbreak.”

My shaven chin rests comfortably on the hair of his chest as I grimace at him. “I’m not being nitpicky. I’m just…”

“You can’t be worried for them. They got you in this mess in the first place. Their troubles aren’t your problem.”

“But they’re my friends,” I retort. “What if something bad happens? What if Fisk sends another person to kill them?”

“Shut the hell up about that,” Frank says as he cuffs my head again. “I said before they’re capable, and I meant that. Stop worrying with people who got their shit together already.”

“Eloquent as always.”

Frank scoffs with a laugh. I can feel the way it resonates deeply in his lungs. “You know what I meant, Red.”

“I used to be good at shutting things off,” I say suddenly. “I never worried this much before. I mean, I would for my friends normally, but not like this, where I can barely sleep and not worry over the littlest things that could happen.”

“What changed?”

_You did. You really did make me care for you, for someone who I’ve barely known for a few days and yet I can’t find myself to let you go. I can’t stand the thought of never knowing you again._

His grip on my nape is made apparent when he squeezes it gently. I look at his face again as I gulp.

“I don’t know.” I kiss him then, moving my body just the tiniest bit further until my lips reach his nose accidentally, then readjusting with a quick laugh— I move downwards to meet his lips. It’s gentle and chaste. Nothing like before was. No biting, no pulling, no suckling. It’s just a simple caress and then I withdraw away. His hand on my neck goes lax, his body easy and languid under my own as I press our lips again. His hands then find themselves on my face, a strange mixture with how soft mine is against his gun calloused hands. He meets me halfway this time when I pull away and kiss him again. He props himself upwards, and I suddenly find myself lifting myself into my knees, resting them next to Frank’s hips, and straddling myself on his lap.  

I feel the stirring desire encompass me the same way his arousal grows. When we kiss again it’s no longer tentative. He bites at my lips as his hands drag marks on shoulder, dragging them downwards in excruciating satisfaction. Then when he lifts his hands upwards they’re gentler, just the pads of his fingers tenderly massaging the scars while at the same time he leaves kisses on my neck and mouth. It’s such a strange juxtaposition.

I keen forward, pressing my cock against his abdomen, the hairs adding even more friction and texture. Frank bucks upward, his cock sliding against my own as he suddenly grabs them both and squeezes tightly. I hiss as the pressure, feeling them slide together, getting slicker as pre cum oozes out and carelessly rutting the heads to find that toe curling experience.

I groan out as Frank bites tenderly at my jugular, his tongue lathing at the marks he left. I grip his shoulders to stay steady as he keeps up his ministrations.

He strokes our cocks together faster, the hardness of him throbbing against my own. Its quick paced and wild now, feeling like I’m going to burst with the intimate contact and biting. Frank kisses me again, our mouths barely meeting in a sloppy kiss as I buck forward when he strokes upwards.

The sensations feel electrical again, like live wire— his touch. It’s enough to make me grind my teeth as I continue bucking up, finding that precious angle that slides the heads together perfectly. I search for it wantonly, my breathe and voice becoming haggard at the feeling growing in my stomach. I feel the way Frank’s stomach begins to tighten, feel his abs grow defined as he thrusts a little too hard that he loses his grips on our cocks. His motions become erratic now, his heart hammering so loud that it’s another voice to all the sensation, but I bite him to ground him which strengthens that beat of his heart to a crescendo of pulses. It’s enough to make me scream at the sound of it, of how personal and powerful it is.

He scolds me with his other hand at the painful bite, cuffing me gently that it forces our mouths to bump into each other and then I can focus away from his pounding heart. I take in his hot breathe on my lips as he still continues to go faster and harder, pumping and gliding our cocks in perfect tandem. 

I feel myself tighten now, feel how good the sensation that’s growing and jumping out of me is as I cry out in relief.

I spasm in quick jerks as I spill all over him, crying out in satisfaction as I bury my hands in his curly hair. My breathing heavy as I pepper kisses to Frank’s mouth, sliding out of his grip as I begin to soften. I gently slide my hand downwards, starting to feel Frank getting closer as he strokes himself, and start to tweak at his nipples in a languid motion, the slickness from my hand making it lewd and sensual. Its quick circles that turn into a tight pinch and pull. I feel the skin turn red with the blood flow, of how sensitive it is, how it causes Frank’s heavy breathes get labored even more. I wait for the right moment before I crane my head down and suckle on the reddened skin.

Frank groans out, his orgasm coming through in thick waves, mixing it with my own and creating the filthiest slick.

“Think that’ll tire you out to sleep?” Frank grinds out in a throaty chuckle when he nuzzles close to my chin.

I smile down at him as I take his warm slickened hand and bring it to my mouth. It’s tentative at first, putting only the tip in, trying out the taste, testing out the extent of the flavour with my senses. I don’t dwell on that too much though, it’s not the taste of it, but the act that is worthy of notice. I hold out two of his fingers and suckle on them to the root now, feeling the extent of our carnality in avid display. Frank’s breathe hitches as he watches me, his eyes boring holes into my head as he actively pushes the fingers into my mouth. He adds third in when he scoops up more for me to swallow.

He kisses me almost immediately when he pulls out the fingers, his hands greedily pulling me closer, his mouth lapping against mine to taste. It’s almost feral how he does it.

After a while the feeling of dried semen becomes too much for my skin that I stand up to find a towel. Frank’s hand pulls me close though, stops me from moving more than a few feet away from the bed.

“I feel gross,” I say as an explanation.

Frank is vehement enough to pout.

“Deal with it in the morning. C’mon, I don’t want you to leave me for a second today.”

I screw my eyebrows into a tight line as I try to understand his words. I don’t have much time to really think about what he said before he pulls me in and then I’m back on the bed, rustling the soft silk as our legs tangle and arms reach for each other. I find it hard to protest about his vehement need for me to be with him. It’s nice to feel wanted once in a while.

His voice hums a small tune as he pulls me in closer. It’s intimate, the gesture, something that’s becoming more and more prevalent as they continue whatever this pact was in the first place. I never expected him to become anything more and I think he thought the same as well.

His voice stops humming and all that’s left is the pounding of his heart that I’ve never been able to forget. It’s calm this time, so strange to hear it beat slow and calmly. It’s like every waking moment of Frank’s life he’s high-strung and stressed to make his heart pound like that. Maybe it’s more apparent to Matt’s senses, maybe it’s miniscule—the changes of his heart. Maybe it’s nothing but just a slightly different beat or he’s just too focused on the sound of it to be biased.

No one’s heart can be that loud.

And all that matters is who this heart belongs to.

It’s Franks.

This time I pull him closer now, our noses barely touching as feel my eyes lid halfway.

Sleep comes as easy as being with Frank.

All consuming and satisfying.

It’s only a little while later do images pop in my head, dreams that focus in and out but never saturate into a reality that exerts his brain. Its idle things, small inconceivable concepts or pictures that he imagines. Its small dreams of being in a court room, of being on trial and talking to the jury with a level head and being vindictive gray.

It shifts again, to a dream about a walk in the park, the leaves tinging orange and red—colours I rarely gets to see or imagine. I’m so enamored that it’s all I really takes in from the imagery.

It shifts once again to a rooftop, to the skyline filled with yellow stars, and there’s blanket where he lays on his back where he’s just looking up, then there’s a gruff voice naming out constellations and shooting stars. I try to turn over, breaking contact with the ever growing view that is the black sky and look to where the voice came from only to find the dream shift again. 

My vision seems blurry, almost muddled in a way, like there is a thin film of grime on my corneas. I blink to focus but it does nothing to cure it. I take to stand up from where I rested on the green grass and find rows upon of rows of white crosses with emblems on them. It’s never ending with the way it seems to blend in the horizon everywhere I look, just a constant row of them all around him. I move closer to inspect one of the grave marks, read the black calligraphy with shock.

_Frank Castle 1971-2016._

_Father, husband and loving friend…_

I blink back in bemusement. Finding sight not such a gift anymore, I feel myself swell with something close to pity or sadness. Sometimes you saw things you never wanted to see, some things you never really wanted aired out before.

I step back, walking a bit farther away from the grave and notice that they all say the same thing.

All of them have Frank’s name on them.

It takes a while before I bring myself to look at the rest of the words, finding a morbid interest to know what it says.

_…May he rest peacefully along with his wife and children now._

Of course Frank had a family before. He’s never really talked about it besides a quipped confirmation for me. He had the whole picket life fence before it was taken from him.

Before all of them died.

I’ve lost people before in my life, but not that many. And from the stoic way Frank talked about it, I can surmise that they all died on the same day, from a massacre of some sorts. All of them gone from Frank and now there was nothing. Nothing except for whatever I am to this man. I feels so small compared to them now. I know I shouldn’t even let my thoughts go there, but they do. I feel like such a fleeting thing to be with him, like some half-assed consolation prize.

How does someone move on from having their life uprooted like this? Like going from being a father to being just a person now? I’ll never understand that since all that I’ve ever faced is being an orphan, of being parentless at a young age, of being alone. And I was really alone, for a majority of my younger years. So I guess, in some ways, I have always been more comfortable with the idea of being by myself, living by myself. It’s all that I’ve known really.

And then there’s Frank. He had a family, he had everything, and he was never alone until this point in his life.

That must be such a foreign thing for him now. Even a soldier like him could never be trained to handle that kind of trauma. He doesn’t seem to show it that much, but I can tell he’s hurting or grieving in little ways.

The little ways in his tone when complains about unkempt dishes or plates and stops himself mid rant, it’s in the way he stares off for a while thinking that I can’t see him, in the way he jolts awake at 6:30 on the dot like he needs to make breakfast and get ready, or the ways in which he fiddles with his index finger sometimes, ghosting for a ring that isn’t there anymore. Small things like these indicate he isn’t really over them just yet.

I kept them hidden in my head, to the back of my mind where they won’t fester and grow into something that really isn’t true.

But maybe there is a colour of truth to them. A hue maybe to be precise. It’s there for him to let it work in his mind.

To feel like second best to someone who isn’t their anymore.

And it’s awful that I feel that way. How could I let myself think so selfishly? To think about someone like that? To slander someone’s role in Frank’s life like that?

But the need to not feel like a replacement is there. I can’t take the idea of that. I don’t want to be treated as such anymore, not with how close I’m getting, not with how it’s starting to affect my personal choices. I’ve lied to him before about how close I am, to no avail of course, but to air it out fully? In the open? To make it real? The decision is on him because he already knows why I keep finding him, why I keep searching him, why I want him here. There is no surprise, no concept of a take back when it backfires on him. And it terrifies me to have no control over this because it’s so different and new. It really is nothing I expected because for certain I never found myself interested or invested in people outside of a fleeting hookup.

No one ever presented me with an opportunity to be something else for someone.

Then as sudden as it came my vision goes black, instantly finding the dream melt and feel relief in never seeing that name on a grave ever again. The dream doesn’t shift anymore. It’s just a blankness in my mind that echoes out towards half awake, the feeling like I’m slowly edging away from lucid dreams is comforting. I take a deep breathe, calming my nerves as I stop trying to recite Frank’s epitaph unconsciously. It’s like a brand on my mind that I can’t forget.

Then I’m more awake than ever that I notice a buzzing sound resounding in my bedroom room, an electrical hum that’s always accompanied by voices or sounds of theatrics. That must have woken me up from my sleep, the T.V is on.

I blink back my eyes of grit, feeling how the warmth of the sun basks me to tell me the time is around 9 or so with how the suns heat is at my neck now. I ruffle slowly out of the sheets, finding the pads of my toes patting down to lead me towards the living room. It takes a while for me to take in the absence of a heartbeat when I near the couches. My eyebrows raise in confusion. I knew that Frank had left the bed a time ago since it was still warm where he had laid next to me. I just expected him to be somewhere in the kitchen or bathroom, still inside the apartment with me.

But there is no heartbeat. No sound. It’s empty like it’s always used to be and the silence of it is deafening enough to stop me in my tracks. I can feel his absence in the room by way that they staunch my senses.

Where did Frank go?

I try not to feel the sting of hurt at that. And that should be ridiculous, does Frank have to tell me he’s leaving all the time or tell me where he’s going? He doesn’t owe me anything like that. He doesn’t need a reason to leave, he just can.

There’s a klaxon sound made by the T.V channel as it blares out today’s news reports.

_“…scandal outbreak with Union Allied about its apparent corruption is furthered on with the revelation that former shareowner, Wilson Fisk, is now under suspicion for alleged charges of fraud…”_

_“We’ve interviewed Mr. Fisk under reports that he has admitted to working with the mafia now.”_

_“…he has stated that his involvement was under duress.”_

_“Police investigation will look further into his statement…”_

_“As of now Wilson Fisk is now placed in protective custody.”_

I shake my head trying to understand what’s being told to me via the reporter.

He willingly sold his associates out? To scapegoat them? He’s desperate now to seek protection from the police? This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

How the hell did they have evidence to indict him as guilty in the first place? And why was he scared enough to go to the police?

The other news channel repeats the same thing, the same coverage over the same story over and over. It’s tedious to hear that I turn it off. It’s likely this has been the main story so far for the past two hours.

A cold feeling swells into my veins though when I realize this. I sense a cool draft in the living room and notice for the first time that the front door is slightly ajar.

I grind my teeth as I slam my hand on the coffee table that I grimace in pain. I don’t really care though.

The bastards gone for a reason I know now.

He’s gone to find him already without me.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is slightly inspired by the song Soon We'll Be Found by Sia since its all I've been listening and musing to it as I write this.  
> Give me comments and thoughts as well to help me write along the way!


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